New research, November 13-19, 2017

A selection of new climate related research articles is shown below.

The Canadian hockey stick shown above in blue is from paper #17.

Climate change mitigation

1. Warning signs for stabilizing global CO 2 emissions

"Carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions from fossil fuels and industry comprise ~90% of all CO 2 emissions from human activities. For the last three years, such emissions were stable, despite continuing growth in the global economy. Many positive trends contributed to this unique hiatus, including reduced coal use in China and elsewhere, continuing gains in energy efficiency, and a boom in low-carbon renewables such as wind and solar. However, the temporary hiatus appears to have ended in 2017. For 2017, we project emissions growth of 2.0% (range: 0.8%−3.0%) from 2016 levels (leap-year adjusted), reaching a record 36.8 ± 2 Gt CO 2 . Economic projections suggest further emissions growth in 2018 is likely. Time is running out on our ability to keep global average temperature increases below 2 °C and, even more immediately, anything close to 1.5 °C."

2. Confirmation of elevated methane emissions in Utah's Uintah Basin with ground-based observations and a high-resolution transport model

"At both Horsepool and Castlepeak, the diurnal cycle of modeled CH₄ concentrations was captured using NOAA emission estimates, but was underestimated using the EPA inventory. These findings corroborate emission estimates from the NOAA inventory, based on daytime mass balance estimates, and provide additional support for a suggested leak rate from the Uintah Basin that is higher than most other regions with natural gas and oil development."

3. Impacts of projected urban expansion and global warming on cooling energy demand over a semiarid region

"Under the highest greenhouse gas emissions scenario (RCP8.5), adverse effects on mean air temperature of global warming overwhelm those from the urbanization of new areas. In particular, the mean temperature increase for a summer period due to global warming and urban expansion in the Phoenix metropolitan area is 3.6 °C and in the Tucson metropolitan area, it is 3.1 °C. These result in an increase in the spatial density of the cooling energy demand (MW km−2) by 36.2 and 42.6% in the respective regions compared to present consumption. The citywide cooling energy demand (MW) on the other hand, is expected to increase up to a factor two (Phoenix) and three (Tucson), with ∼75% of this increase due to urban expansion, and ∼25% due to global warming."

4. Co-benefits of global, domestic, and sectoral greenhouse gas mitigation for US air quality and human health in 2050

5. Possibilities for near-term bioenergy production and GHG-mitigation through sustainable intensification of agriculture and forestry in Denmark

6. Land-use and land-cover change carbon emissions between 1901 and 2012 constrained by biomass observations

7. Nitrogen-Related Constraints of Carbon Uptake by Large-Scale Forest Expansion: Simulation Study for Climate Change and Management Scenarios

8. Oil palm expansion in Cameroon: Insights into sustainability opportunities and challenges in Africa

9. Greenhouse gas and energy balance of Jatropha biofuel production systems of Burkina Faso

10. Cost reduction potential of parabolic trough based concentrating solar power plants in India

11. Cartograms facilitate communication of climate change risks and responsibilities

12. Replacement policy of residential lighting optimized for cost, energy, and greenhouse gas emissions

Climate change

13. Recent changes in extreme floods across multiple continents

"The occurrence of rare floods in spatial aggregate shows strong temporal variability and peaked around 1995. During the 30 year period, there are overall increases in both the frequency and magnitude of extreme floods. These increases are strongest in Europe and the United States, and weakest in Brazil and Australia."

14. Climate extremes in Europe at 1.5 and 2 degrees of global warming

"For example, we find that events similar to the European record hot summer of 2003, which caused tens of thousands of excess deaths, would be very likely at least 24% less frequent in a world at 1.5 °C global warming compared to 2 °C global warming. Under 2 °C of global warming, we could expect such extreme summer temperatures in the historical record to become commonplace, occurring in at least one-in-every-two years."

15. Aerosol trends as a potential driver of regional climate in the central United States: evidence from observations

"Taken together, these results suggest that climate and regional hydrology in the central US are sensitive to the recent reductions in aerosol concentrations. Our work has implications for severely polluted regions outside the US, where improvements in air quality due to reductions in the aerosol burden could inadvertently pose an enhanced climate risk."

16. Groundwater Depletion: A Significant Unreported Source of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide

"We suggest that groundwater depletion adds significant and measurable CO2 to the atmosphere and should be considered as a source in future CO2 budgets as groundwater depletion at the same or greater rate is likely to continue"

17. Episodic Neoglacial expansion and rapid 20th century retreat of a small ice cap on Baffin Island, Arctic Canada, and modeled temperature change

"Model experiments show that at least ∼ 0.44 °C of cooling over the past 2 kyr is required for the ice cap to reach its 1900 CE margin, and that the period from ∼ 1000 to 1900 CE must have been at least 0.25° C cooler than the previous millennium, results that agree with regional temperature reconstructions and climate model simulations. However, significant warming since 1900 CE is required to explain retreat to its present position, and, at the same rate of warming, the ice cap will disappear before 2100 CE."

18. Comparison of Mechanisms for Low-Frequency Variability of Summer Arctic Sea Ice in Three Coupled Climate Models

19. Recent Progress in Greenland Ice Sheet Modelling

20. Predicting the geothermal heat flux in Greenland: a Machine Learning approach

21. Antarctic climate variability on regional and continental scales over the last 2000 years

22. No surface cooling over Antarctica from the negative greenhouse effect associated with instantaneous quadrupling of CO₂ concentrations

23. Oceanographic Controls on the Variability of Ice-Shelf Basal Melting and Circulation of Glacial Meltwater in the Amundsen Sea Embayment, Antarctica

24. Agreement of CMIP5 Simulated and Observed Ocean Anthropogenic CO₂ Uptake

25. A mechanistic model of an upper bound on oceanic carbon export as a function of mixed layer depth and temperature

26. Contributions of the troposphere and stratosphere to CH₄ model biases

27. Uncertainties in observations and climate projections for the North East India

28. Assessment of simulated and projected climate change in Pakistan using IPCC AR4-based AOGCMs

29. Synoptic climatology of winter daily temperature extremes in Sapporo, northern Japan

30. Reassessment of urbanization effect on surface air temperature trends at an urban station of North China

31. Seasonal cycles enhance disparities between low- and high-income countries in exposure to monthly temperature emergence with future warming

32. Role of the Atlantic Multidecadal Variability in modulating the climate response to a Pinatubo-like volcanic eruption

33. A possible explanation for the divergent projection of ENSO amplitude change under global warming

34. Sea surface temperature in the subtropical Pacific boosted the 2015 El Niño and hindered the 2016 La Niña

35. Contributions of Interdecadal Pacific Osc illation and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation to Global Ocean Heat Content Distribution

36. Global assessment of groundwater sustainability based on storage anomalies

37. Spatial representativeness of surface-measured variations of downward solar radiation

38. Cloud climatologies from the infrared sounders AIRS and IASI: strengths and applications

39. Using Long-term Satellite Observations to Identify Sensitive Regimes and Active Regions of Aerosol Indirect Effects for Liquid Clouds over Global Oceans

40. The warming of large lakes on the Tibetan Plateau-evidence from a lake model simulation of Nam Co, China, during 1979-2012

41. Human-induced river runoff overlapping natural climate variability over the last 150 years: Palynological evidence (Bay of Brest, NW France)

42. Flood runoff in relation to water vapor transport by atmospheric rivers over the western United States, 1949-2015

43. Ocean-bottom deformation due to present-day mass redistribution and its impact on sea-level observations

44. Characteristics of Explosive Cyclones over the Northern Pacific

45. Rapid Weakening of Tropical Cyclones in Monsoon Gyres over the Tropical Western North Pacific

Climate change impacts

46. Effects of heat waves on daily excess mortality in 14 Korean cities during the past 20 years (1991–2010): an application of the spatial synoptic classification approach

"The result showed that dry tropical (DT) days during early summer caused excess mortality due to non-acclimatization by inhabitants, and moist tropical (MT) plus and double plus resulted in greater spikes of excess mortality due to extremely hot and humid conditions. Among the 14 Korean cities, highly excess mortality for the elderly was observed in Incheon (23.2%, 95%CI 5.6), Seoul (15.8%, 95%CI 2.6), and Jeonju (15.8%, 95%CI 4.6). No time lag effect was observed, and excess mortality gradually increased with time and hot weather simultaneously."

47. The catastrophic landside in Maoxian County, Sichuan, SW China, on June 24, 2017

"In virtue of the in situ reconnaissance conducted by geological experts, the main reason for the collapse is the high-level and long-distance debris flow in earthquake fracture zone induced by continuous rainfall."

48. Impact of sea level rise and coastal slope on shoreline change along the Indian coast

"The present study demonstrates that coastal slope is an additional parameter responsible for the movement of shoreline along with sea level change. The results of satellite-derived SCR reveal the highest percentage of erosion along West Bengal coast with 70% followed by Kerala (65%), Gujarat (60%) and Odisha (50%). The coastlines of remaining states recorded less than 50% of coasts under erosion."

49. Recurrent sublethal warming reduces embryonic survival, inhibits juvenile growth, and alters species distribution projections under climate change

"In both cases, recurrent sublethal warming decreased embryonic survival and hatchling sizes. Incorporating survivorship results into a mechanistic species distribution model reduced annual survival by up to 24% compared to models that did not incorporate sublethal warming. Contrary to models without sublethal effects, our model suggests that modest increases in developmental temperatures influence species ranges due to effects on survivorship."

50. Biodiversity and climate determine the functioning of Neotropical forests

"Water availability has a strong positive effect on biomass stocks and growth, and a future predicted increase in (atmospheric) drought might, therefore, potentially reduce carbon storage. Forest attributes, including species diversity and community-weighted mean traits, have independent and important relationships with AGB stocks, dynamics and ecosystem functioning, not only in relatively simple temperate systems, but also in structurally complex hyper-diverse tropical forests."

51. Annual Global Mean Temperature explains reproductive success in a marine vertebrate from 1955-2010

52. Translating Uncertain Sea Level Projections into Infrastructure Impacts Using a Bayesian Framework

53. Unique challenges and opportunities for northeastern US crop production in a changing climate

54. Increasing canopy photosynthesis in rice can be achieved without a large increase in water use–a model based on free-air CO₂ enrichment

55. Analysis of agro-climatic parameters and their influence on maize production in South Africa

56. Modelling the impacts of climate change and crop management on phenological trends of spring and winter wheat in China

57. Responses of rubber leaf phenology to climatic variations in Southwest China

58. Groundwater-dependent irrigation costs and benefits for adaptation to global change

59. Heat stress in cows at pasture and benefit of shade in a temperate climate region

60. Effect of climatic and soil moisture conditions on mushroom productivity and related ecosystem services in Mediterranean pine stands facing climate change

61. Accessing the southeastern Brazil 2014 drought severity on the vegetation health by satellite image

62. Estimation of carbon sequestration in China's forests induced by atmospheric wet nitrogen deposition using the principles of ecological stoichiometry

63. Remotely sensed predictors of conifer tree mortality during severe drought

64. The Role of Natural Variability in Shaping the Response of Coral Reef Organisms to Climate Change

65. Historical insights on growth rates of the reef-building corals Pavona gigantea and Porites panamensis from the Northeastern tropical Pacific

66. Combined, short-term exposure to reduced seawater pH and elevated temperature induces community shifts in an intertidal meiobenthic assemblage

67. The role of bryophytes for tree seedling responses to winter climate change: implications for the stress gradient hypothesis

68. Temperature response surfaces for mortality risk of tree species with future drought

69. Land use in mountain grasslands alters drought response and recovery of carbon allocation and plant-microbial interactions

70. Ecosystem-based adaptation to climate change: defining hotspot municipalities for policy design and implementation in Brazil

71. Can Antarctic lichens acclimatise to changes in temperature?

72. Rock glaciers in crystalline catchments: hidden permafrost-related threats to alpine headwater lakes

73. Knowledge, attitudes and practices of climate adaptation actors towards resilience and transformation in a 1.5°C world

Other papers

74. Air quality improvements and health benefits from China’s clean air action since 2013

75. The potential of existing cellular networks for detecting the precursors of fog

76. Interplay of environmental and socio-political factors in the downfall of the Eastern Türk Empire in 630 CE

from Skeptical Science http://ift.tt/2AtdPlp

A selection of new climate related research articles is shown below.

The Canadian hockey stick shown above in blue is from paper #17.

Climate change mitigation

1. Warning signs for stabilizing global CO 2 emissions

"Carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions from fossil fuels and industry comprise ~90% of all CO 2 emissions from human activities. For the last three years, such emissions were stable, despite continuing growth in the global economy. Many positive trends contributed to this unique hiatus, including reduced coal use in China and elsewhere, continuing gains in energy efficiency, and a boom in low-carbon renewables such as wind and solar. However, the temporary hiatus appears to have ended in 2017. For 2017, we project emissions growth of 2.0% (range: 0.8%−3.0%) from 2016 levels (leap-year adjusted), reaching a record 36.8 ± 2 Gt CO 2 . Economic projections suggest further emissions growth in 2018 is likely. Time is running out on our ability to keep global average temperature increases below 2 °C and, even more immediately, anything close to 1.5 °C."

2. Confirmation of elevated methane emissions in Utah's Uintah Basin with ground-based observations and a high-resolution transport model

"At both Horsepool and Castlepeak, the diurnal cycle of modeled CH₄ concentrations was captured using NOAA emission estimates, but was underestimated using the EPA inventory. These findings corroborate emission estimates from the NOAA inventory, based on daytime mass balance estimates, and provide additional support for a suggested leak rate from the Uintah Basin that is higher than most other regions with natural gas and oil development."

3. Impacts of projected urban expansion and global warming on cooling energy demand over a semiarid region

"Under the highest greenhouse gas emissions scenario (RCP8.5), adverse effects on mean air temperature of global warming overwhelm those from the urbanization of new areas. In particular, the mean temperature increase for a summer period due to global warming and urban expansion in the Phoenix metropolitan area is 3.6 °C and in the Tucson metropolitan area, it is 3.1 °C. These result in an increase in the spatial density of the cooling energy demand (MW km−2) by 36.2 and 42.6% in the respective regions compared to present consumption. The citywide cooling energy demand (MW) on the other hand, is expected to increase up to a factor two (Phoenix) and three (Tucson), with ∼75% of this increase due to urban expansion, and ∼25% due to global warming."

4. Co-benefits of global, domestic, and sectoral greenhouse gas mitigation for US air quality and human health in 2050

5. Possibilities for near-term bioenergy production and GHG-mitigation through sustainable intensification of agriculture and forestry in Denmark

6. Land-use and land-cover change carbon emissions between 1901 and 2012 constrained by biomass observations

7. Nitrogen-Related Constraints of Carbon Uptake by Large-Scale Forest Expansion: Simulation Study for Climate Change and Management Scenarios

8. Oil palm expansion in Cameroon: Insights into sustainability opportunities and challenges in Africa

9. Greenhouse gas and energy balance of Jatropha biofuel production systems of Burkina Faso

10. Cost reduction potential of parabolic trough based concentrating solar power plants in India

11. Cartograms facilitate communication of climate change risks and responsibilities

12. Replacement policy of residential lighting optimized for cost, energy, and greenhouse gas emissions

Climate change

13. Recent changes in extreme floods across multiple continents

"The occurrence of rare floods in spatial aggregate shows strong temporal variability and peaked around 1995. During the 30 year period, there are overall increases in both the frequency and magnitude of extreme floods. These increases are strongest in Europe and the United States, and weakest in Brazil and Australia."

14. Climate extremes in Europe at 1.5 and 2 degrees of global warming

"For example, we find that events similar to the European record hot summer of 2003, which caused tens of thousands of excess deaths, would be very likely at least 24% less frequent in a world at 1.5 °C global warming compared to 2 °C global warming. Under 2 °C of global warming, we could expect such extreme summer temperatures in the historical record to become commonplace, occurring in at least one-in-every-two years."

15. Aerosol trends as a potential driver of regional climate in the central United States: evidence from observations

"Taken together, these results suggest that climate and regional hydrology in the central US are sensitive to the recent reductions in aerosol concentrations. Our work has implications for severely polluted regions outside the US, where improvements in air quality due to reductions in the aerosol burden could inadvertently pose an enhanced climate risk."

16. Groundwater Depletion: A Significant Unreported Source of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide

"We suggest that groundwater depletion adds significant and measurable CO2 to the atmosphere and should be considered as a source in future CO2 budgets as groundwater depletion at the same or greater rate is likely to continue"

17. Episodic Neoglacial expansion and rapid 20th century retreat of a small ice cap on Baffin Island, Arctic Canada, and modeled temperature change

"Model experiments show that at least ∼ 0.44 °C of cooling over the past 2 kyr is required for the ice cap to reach its 1900 CE margin, and that the period from ∼ 1000 to 1900 CE must have been at least 0.25° C cooler than the previous millennium, results that agree with regional temperature reconstructions and climate model simulations. However, significant warming since 1900 CE is required to explain retreat to its present position, and, at the same rate of warming, the ice cap will disappear before 2100 CE."

18. Comparison of Mechanisms for Low-Frequency Variability of Summer Arctic Sea Ice in Three Coupled Climate Models

19. Recent Progress in Greenland Ice Sheet Modelling

20. Predicting the geothermal heat flux in Greenland: a Machine Learning approach

21. Antarctic climate variability on regional and continental scales over the last 2000 years

22. No surface cooling over Antarctica from the negative greenhouse effect associated with instantaneous quadrupling of CO₂ concentrations

23. Oceanographic Controls on the Variability of Ice-Shelf Basal Melting and Circulation of Glacial Meltwater in the Amundsen Sea Embayment, Antarctica

24. Agreement of CMIP5 Simulated and Observed Ocean Anthropogenic CO₂ Uptake

25. A mechanistic model of an upper bound on oceanic carbon export as a function of mixed layer depth and temperature

26. Contributions of the troposphere and stratosphere to CH₄ model biases

27. Uncertainties in observations and climate projections for the North East India

28. Assessment of simulated and projected climate change in Pakistan using IPCC AR4-based AOGCMs

29. Synoptic climatology of winter daily temperature extremes in Sapporo, northern Japan

30. Reassessment of urbanization effect on surface air temperature trends at an urban station of North China

31. Seasonal cycles enhance disparities between low- and high-income countries in exposure to monthly temperature emergence with future warming

32. Role of the Atlantic Multidecadal Variability in modulating the climate response to a Pinatubo-like volcanic eruption

33. A possible explanation for the divergent projection of ENSO amplitude change under global warming

34. Sea surface temperature in the subtropical Pacific boosted the 2015 El Niño and hindered the 2016 La Niña

35. Contributions of Interdecadal Pacific Osc illation and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation to Global Ocean Heat Content Distribution

36. Global assessment of groundwater sustainability based on storage anomalies

37. Spatial representativeness of surface-measured variations of downward solar radiation

38. Cloud climatologies from the infrared sounders AIRS and IASI: strengths and applications

39. Using Long-term Satellite Observations to Identify Sensitive Regimes and Active Regions of Aerosol Indirect Effects for Liquid Clouds over Global Oceans

40. The warming of large lakes on the Tibetan Plateau-evidence from a lake model simulation of Nam Co, China, during 1979-2012

41. Human-induced river runoff overlapping natural climate variability over the last 150 years: Palynological evidence (Bay of Brest, NW France)

42. Flood runoff in relation to water vapor transport by atmospheric rivers over the western United States, 1949-2015

43. Ocean-bottom deformation due to present-day mass redistribution and its impact on sea-level observations

44. Characteristics of Explosive Cyclones over the Northern Pacific

45. Rapid Weakening of Tropical Cyclones in Monsoon Gyres over the Tropical Western North Pacific

Climate change impacts

46. Effects of heat waves on daily excess mortality in 14 Korean cities during the past 20 years (1991–2010): an application of the spatial synoptic classification approach

"The result showed that dry tropical (DT) days during early summer caused excess mortality due to non-acclimatization by inhabitants, and moist tropical (MT) plus and double plus resulted in greater spikes of excess mortality due to extremely hot and humid conditions. Among the 14 Korean cities, highly excess mortality for the elderly was observed in Incheon (23.2%, 95%CI 5.6), Seoul (15.8%, 95%CI 2.6), and Jeonju (15.8%, 95%CI 4.6). No time lag effect was observed, and excess mortality gradually increased with time and hot weather simultaneously."

47. The catastrophic landside in Maoxian County, Sichuan, SW China, on June 24, 2017

"In virtue of the in situ reconnaissance conducted by geological experts, the main reason for the collapse is the high-level and long-distance debris flow in earthquake fracture zone induced by continuous rainfall."

48. Impact of sea level rise and coastal slope on shoreline change along the Indian coast

"The present study demonstrates that coastal slope is an additional parameter responsible for the movement of shoreline along with sea level change. The results of satellite-derived SCR reveal the highest percentage of erosion along West Bengal coast with 70% followed by Kerala (65%), Gujarat (60%) and Odisha (50%). The coastlines of remaining states recorded less than 50% of coasts under erosion."

49. Recurrent sublethal warming reduces embryonic survival, inhibits juvenile growth, and alters species distribution projections under climate change

"In both cases, recurrent sublethal warming decreased embryonic survival and hatchling sizes. Incorporating survivorship results into a mechanistic species distribution model reduced annual survival by up to 24% compared to models that did not incorporate sublethal warming. Contrary to models without sublethal effects, our model suggests that modest increases in developmental temperatures influence species ranges due to effects on survivorship."

50. Biodiversity and climate determine the functioning of Neotropical forests

"Water availability has a strong positive effect on biomass stocks and growth, and a future predicted increase in (atmospheric) drought might, therefore, potentially reduce carbon storage. Forest attributes, including species diversity and community-weighted mean traits, have independent and important relationships with AGB stocks, dynamics and ecosystem functioning, not only in relatively simple temperate systems, but also in structurally complex hyper-diverse tropical forests."

51. Annual Global Mean Temperature explains reproductive success in a marine vertebrate from 1955-2010

52. Translating Uncertain Sea Level Projections into Infrastructure Impacts Using a Bayesian Framework

53. Unique challenges and opportunities for northeastern US crop production in a changing climate

54. Increasing canopy photosynthesis in rice can be achieved without a large increase in water use–a model based on free-air CO₂ enrichment

55. Analysis of agro-climatic parameters and their influence on maize production in South Africa

56. Modelling the impacts of climate change and crop management on phenological trends of spring and winter wheat in China

57. Responses of rubber leaf phenology to climatic variations in Southwest China

58. Groundwater-dependent irrigation costs and benefits for adaptation to global change

59. Heat stress in cows at pasture and benefit of shade in a temperate climate region

60. Effect of climatic and soil moisture conditions on mushroom productivity and related ecosystem services in Mediterranean pine stands facing climate change

61. Accessing the southeastern Brazil 2014 drought severity on the vegetation health by satellite image

62. Estimation of carbon sequestration in China's forests induced by atmospheric wet nitrogen deposition using the principles of ecological stoichiometry

63. Remotely sensed predictors of conifer tree mortality during severe drought

64. The Role of Natural Variability in Shaping the Response of Coral Reef Organisms to Climate Change

65. Historical insights on growth rates of the reef-building corals Pavona gigantea and Porites panamensis from the Northeastern tropical Pacific

66. Combined, short-term exposure to reduced seawater pH and elevated temperature induces community shifts in an intertidal meiobenthic assemblage

67. The role of bryophytes for tree seedling responses to winter climate change: implications for the stress gradient hypothesis

68. Temperature response surfaces for mortality risk of tree species with future drought

69. Land use in mountain grasslands alters drought response and recovery of carbon allocation and plant-microbial interactions

70. Ecosystem-based adaptation to climate change: defining hotspot municipalities for policy design and implementation in Brazil

71. Can Antarctic lichens acclimatise to changes in temperature?

72. Rock glaciers in crystalline catchments: hidden permafrost-related threats to alpine headwater lakes

73. Knowledge, attitudes and practices of climate adaptation actors towards resilience and transformation in a 1.5°C world

Other papers

74. Air quality improvements and health benefits from China’s clean air action since 2013

75. The potential of existing cellular networks for detecting the precursors of fog

76. Interplay of environmental and socio-political factors in the downfall of the Eastern Türk Empire in 630 CE

from Skeptical Science http://ift.tt/2AtdPlp

Summer Triangle in northern autumn

Tonight, and in the evenings ahead, look for Summer Triangle. It’s the signature star formation of our Northern Hemisphere summer, but you can see it in northern autumn, too. The Summer Triangle showcases three brilliant stars – Vega, Deneb and Altair – in three separate constellations. The Summer Triangle will still shines in the western evening sky (at mid-northern latitudes or farther north). What’s more, the Summer Triangle will continue to shine after dark throughout December and January. Look for it tonight at early evening, high in your western sky.

In the month of June – around the June solstice – the Summer Triangle pops out in the east as darkness falls and shines all night long. But now – in late November – the Summer Triangle appears way high in the west at evening. As evening deepens, the Summer Triangle descends westward, with all three of its stars staying above the horizon until mid-to-late evening.

EarthSky lunar calendars make great gifts for astronomy-minded friends and family.

November 2016 guide to the bright planets

Here is the Summer Triangle asterism – three bright stars in three different constellations – as photographed by EarthSky Facebook friend Susan Jensen in Odessa, Washington. Thank you, Susan!

Altair – the Summer Triangle’s most southerly star – will set around 9:30 to 10:30 p.m. tonight at mid-northern latitudes. Notice where you see the Summer Triangle at a given time this evening. The Summer Triangle will return to this same place in the sky some 4 minutes earlier with each passing day, or 2 hours earlier with each passing month.

As the Summer Triangle sinks close the western horizon around mid-evening, turn around to see Orion – the signpost constellation of winter – rising in the east.

Nils Ribi caught this photo of the Summer Triangle in November 2014.

Bottom line: Look westward this evening for the three brilliant stars of the humongous Summer Triangle: Vega, Deneb and Altair.

EarthSky astronomy kits are perfect for beginners. Order yours from the EarthSky store.

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1d9IJxP

Tonight, and in the evenings ahead, look for Summer Triangle. It’s the signature star formation of our Northern Hemisphere summer, but you can see it in northern autumn, too. The Summer Triangle showcases three brilliant stars – Vega, Deneb and Altair – in three separate constellations. The Summer Triangle will still shines in the western evening sky (at mid-northern latitudes or farther north). What’s more, the Summer Triangle will continue to shine after dark throughout December and January. Look for it tonight at early evening, high in your western sky.

In the month of June – around the June solstice – the Summer Triangle pops out in the east as darkness falls and shines all night long. But now – in late November – the Summer Triangle appears way high in the west at evening. As evening deepens, the Summer Triangle descends westward, with all three of its stars staying above the horizon until mid-to-late evening.

EarthSky lunar calendars make great gifts for astronomy-minded friends and family.

November 2016 guide to the bright planets

Here is the Summer Triangle asterism – three bright stars in three different constellations – as photographed by EarthSky Facebook friend Susan Jensen in Odessa, Washington. Thank you, Susan!

Altair – the Summer Triangle’s most southerly star – will set around 9:30 to 10:30 p.m. tonight at mid-northern latitudes. Notice where you see the Summer Triangle at a given time this evening. The Summer Triangle will return to this same place in the sky some 4 minutes earlier with each passing day, or 2 hours earlier with each passing month.

As the Summer Triangle sinks close the western horizon around mid-evening, turn around to see Orion – the signpost constellation of winter – rising in the east.

Nils Ribi caught this photo of the Summer Triangle in November 2014.

Bottom line: Look westward this evening for the three brilliant stars of the humongous Summer Triangle: Vega, Deneb and Altair.

EarthSky astronomy kits are perfect for beginners. Order yours from the EarthSky store.

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1d9IJxP

Our milestones: Nudging breast cancer radiotherapy in the right direction

This entry is part 29 of 29 in the series Our milestones

In this instalment, we take look at how the START trials provided crucial evidence to change practice for women having radiotherapy for early stage breast cancer.

The journey from discovering x-rays to using them to treat cancer was a quick one.

It began in the winter of 1895 in a physicist’s lab in central Bavaria, Germany. While he was experimenting with electricity and gases, Professor Wilhelm Röntgen produced what he called ‘a new kind of ray’.

Word of the ray travelled quickly, and its use in medicine soon followed. Within 3 years of the discovery, the first documented case of using x-ray radiation against cancer emerged.

Researchers from Sweden reported that 6 patients with cancer in the nose and cheek had their tumours destroyed by a single, large dose of x-ray radiation. But that single radiation hit caused severe burns to their skin.

It was only a couple of decades later, in 1914, that these side effects were addressed.

In Lyon, a radiologist called Claudius Regaud had been thinking about ways to kill cancer cells using x-rays while sparing healthy cells.

After comparing how normal cells and cancer cells behave under radiation, he suggested that breaking up radiation treatments into many smaller doses might be just as effective as one big radiation hit. On top of that, he proposed that the breaks in treatment would give healthy cells time to recover and repair themselves from the radiation.

Regaud believed this combination was a kinder option. Little did he know that he’d invented a new way of giving radiotherapy called fractionation.

The Great War was now rumbling and alongside military duties, Regaud kept up his work on understanding the effects of radioactivity on human cells.

While peace came and went in Europe, a follower of Regaud in Manchester, called Ralston Paterson, started to experiment with radiation doses for treating cancer. From this he drew up a dosage system that determined how much radiation was needed to kill different types of tumours.

By now it was the 1940s and Britain was in a second world war.

Using his new knowledge of the different effects of radiation doses on tumours, Paterson started experimenting with fraction size. He used larger doses of radiation than Regaud and began working out how much should be given to patients in each session.

The beginning of START

Through the years, radiotherapy centres started to experiment with fractionation too, splitting the total dose of radiation into smaller ones.

Soon enough a wide range of radiotherapy regimens emerged across the globe.

Over in South Africa in the early 1950s, a scientist called Dr Lionel Cohen attempted to figure out what the vast majority of radiotherapy centres were doing. He gathered and compared information from hospitals throughout the world to see how effective fractionation was and what was the most common regimen.

By the ‘80s, the recommended radiotherapy schedule outside of the UK for breast cancer after surgery was giving 2 Gray (Gy) of radiation 25 times (or in 25 fractions) over 5 weeks. A Gy is a unit of radiation used to measure how much radiation energy a tissue absorbs. This meant the average patient received in total 50 Gy of radiation over the course of their treatment.

If you count small differences in prescriptions there was something like 34 different radiotherapy schedules in the UK in the 1980s, so we really needed to put the house in order.

Professor John Yarnold, The Institute of Cancer Research

Although this dose kept tumours under control, women often reported life-long scarring and hardening of their breast tissue.

Even after Cohen’s attempts to bring consistency to radiotherapy dosing, there still wasn’t much robust evidence to suggest which fraction size worked best, how many fractions a patient should receive and how quickly the treatment could be done.

It was clear the field needed some direction to establish a standard of care, but it wasn’t until around 30 years later that the tide started to change.

A team of researchers in Canada decided to go over Cohen’s work with a fine-tooth comb. They concluded that breast cancer responded to radiotherapy treatment differently compared to most other cancers.

If this was true, it could mean that the standard 25 dose regimen might not be the most effective way of treating patients.

“If you count small differences in prescriptions there were something like 34 different radiotherapy schedules in the UK in the 1980s, so we really needed to put the house in order,” recalls John Yarnold from the Institute of Cancer Research, London (ICR) and the Royal Marsden.

Yarnold set to work with a team at Cheltenham General Hospital to address these housekeeping challenges. They organised a randomised clinical trial with the help of 1410 patients receiving radiotherapy as part of their breast cancer treatment. They found that giving the total radiation dose in fewer hospital visits – meaning at each visit the patient received a larger dose than was previously being offered – was safe and effective.

This gave them the green light to get things moving.

They teamed up with their ICR colleague, Judith Bliss, and united experts from around the UK to set up two of the most influential radiotherapy breast cancer trials to date: the START Trials.

Using money from Cancer Research UK, the UK Medical Research Council and the UK Department of Health the trials would soon create enough evidence to change practice worldwide.

Team science

Between 1998 and 2003, 35 radiotherapy centres across the UK worked together to recruit 4450 women with early breast cancer for the two trials, called START A and START B.

This was the first time such a large number of radiotherapy experts put their heads together, and for Bliss and Yarnold this collaboration was key to the trials’ success.

“It was team science. That’s how you’re successful in medicine, by building a team,” says Yarnold.

In START A, women were randomly allocated to one of three groups after surgery. Each group received a different radiotherapy schedule.

In the first group, patients received 50 Gy of radiation in total. They had to visit the hospital 25 times and so at each session received 2 Gy of radiation, the international standard.

These patients received radiation in fractions which means a dose of radiation 2 Gy or less.

START A

Group 1: 2 Gy of radiation each hospital visit. 25 treatments in total over 5 weeks. 50 Gy in total

Group 2: 3 Gy of radiation each hospital visit. 13 treatments in total over 5 weeks. 39 Gy in total

Group 3: 3.2 Gy of radiation each hospital visit. 13 treatments in total over 5 weeks. 41.6 Gy in total

What made this trial different was that it tested the standard against ‘hypofractions’. Hypofractions are doses of radiation over 2 Gy.

This meant in the second and third groups, patients received higher radiation doses at each session – 3 and 3.2 Gy respectively.

Because the team wanted to spare damage to healthy tissue, which the standard 50 Gy was known to cause, they also chose a lower total dose for groups 2 and 3.

This meant only 13 fractions were needed, reducing hospital visits to 13 instead of the usual 25. Groups 2 and 3 received a total 39 and 41.6 Gy respectively.

The results showed that the cancer was under control in all three groups, making the schedule in group 2 the best as side effects were the least severe.

This proved that both breast cancer cells and healthy cells noticed the difference in fraction size.

Perhaps more importantly, it suggested that what had been deemed standard treatment was exposing women to an unnecessary amount of radiation.

Two studies are better than one

If organising one large-scale trial wasn’t enough, Yarnold and Bliss designed another, called START B, to run at the same time as START A.

“START B was actually the practice-changing trial when the 5-year results were published in 2008,” says Yarnold.

The test schedule of radiotherapy outlined in START B was already widely used in UK hospitals, but the team wanted to collect enough evidence to prove this was best for patients.

START B

Group 1: 2 Gy of radiation each hospital visit. 25 treatments in total over 5 weeks.

Group 2: 2.7 Gy of radiation each hospital visit. 15 treatments in total over 3 weeks.

Half of the 2215 women with early-stage breast cancer received a total of 40 Gy of radiation, over 3 weeks, in 15 fractions. That meant they got 2.7 Gy at each hospital visit.

As with START A, they compared this to the international regimen, 2 Gy per treatment, 25 times, over 5 weeks.

Again, the number of patients whose disease returned was similar in both groups, but those who received higher doses per visit over a shorter period of time (hypofractionation therapy) reported fewer side effects and a better quality of life 5 years on.

“The side effects were about 15-20 per cent less frequent in women who were given 15 fractions of 2.7 Gy,” says Yarnold, adding that women who received around 40 Gy had less scarring, less hardening of the breast and less change in the breast appearance.

But even though practice has moved towards the regimen in START B, one trial could not have been so successful without the other.

START B suggested that giving radiotherapy in fewer, higher doses was overall gentler on healthy tissues and that treatment could be just as successful when given over a shorter period of time.

START A proved that fraction size mattered when treating breast cancer.

“The results of START B have more weight because they’re entirely consistent with START A,” says Bliss.

To add even more weight to START’s results, doctors monitored all START A and B patients for 10 years. These results matched those at 5 years, and reassured the radiotherapy community that moving towards 15 hypofractions of 2.7 Gy was the way to go.

In 2009, the results were the tipping point for the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) to update its guidelines and recommend this schedule for all patients.

“There had been a general direction of travel and NICE’s decision helped standardise UK treatments,” says Bliss.

Now nearly all patients in the UK receive 15 fractions of radiotherapy after surgery for early stage breast cancer.

It wasn’t just the UK that START influenced.

“The spread is patchy but it’s now growing fast,” says Yarnold. “It’s also a standard of care for many patients in Norway and Sweden.”

Hypofractionation: a patient’s perspective

Thanks to the community of radiotherapy researchers, women all over the world can expect a better quality of life after this particular breast cancer treatment plan.

Chris was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2013, just a couple of years before her grandson was born.

“It all happened within a week,” she says. “My first reaction was to ask them to remove both breasts, but they said they wanted to try and shrink the tumour so they didn’t have to. “

I don’t have any scarring. I’m really lucky in that way.

– Chris, breast cancer survivor

After surgery to remove the tumour, Chris received radiotherapy in multiple fractions for three weeks, like the schedule that START B tested 10 years before.

“You have to go in every day for treatment, which is the most tiring bit. But luckily I had just been given my over 60s bus pass so the journey wasn’t too bad,” she says.

For her, the treatment was very quick and relatively comfortable. “I don’t spend a lot of time lying down and doing nothing so it was quite nice to have a rest!” she says.

Chris’ treatment plan meant she received less radiation overall with the aim of keeping her side effects to a minimum.

“I don’t have any scarring,” she says. “I’m really lucky in that way.

“You’d get a bit of a burn afterwards but apart from that I had no discomfort from the radiotherapy really.” Chris was back swimming and walking her dogs in no time.

“Research is everything!” she says. “I’m so lucky because I still have an amazing life. I have a lot to look forward to now.”

Only the beginning for START

The team isn’t stopping at START. Using evidence from the trials they hope to refine radiotherapy guidelines for breast cancer even further.

The risk of a patient’s disease coming back has dropped dramatically since the 1980s, from around 10 in 100 people seeing their cancer return at 5 years to now between 1 and 2 in 100 people.

The aim now is to find a way to identify those patients who are least likely to need radiotherapy as part of their treatment.

“This new study will use biomarkers and clinical data to predict the risk of disease return,” says Yarnold.“We’re now trying to find those women who don’t need any radiotherapy at all.”

Even though the START trials produced fantastic evidence that shaped treatment for women with early stage breast cancer, both Bliss and Yarnold agree their impact runs deeper.

They say the radiotherapy community was always close, but none of these trials would have been possible without the researchers that built the foundations around START.

“This wasn’t a one off partnership to deliver a clinical study,” says Bliss, adding that Cancer Research UK’s contribution was much wider than project funding.

“By helping us to develop partnerships back in the 80s we have created the infrastructure to continue and develop our practice-changing trials.”

It seems the START trials are defined by more than just chaning clinical practice. They mark the beginning of a research network that continues to move radiotherapy research forward and improve the lives of women with breast cancer.

Gabi

References

The START Trialists Group. (2008) The UK Standardisation of Breast Radiotherapy (START) Trial A of radiotherapy hypofractionation for treatment of early breast cancer: a randomised trial. Lancet. Oncol. doi:  10.1016/S1470-2045(08)70077-9

The START Trialists Group. (2008) The UK Standardisation of Breast radiotherapy (START) Trial B of radiotherapy hypofractionation for treatment of early breast cancer: a randomised trial. Lancet doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(08)60348-7

The START Trialists Group. (2013) The UK Standardisation of Breast Radiotherapy (START) trials of radiotherapy hypofractionation for treatment of early breast cancer: 10-year follow-up results of two randomised controlled trials. Lancet Oncol. doi: 10.1016/S1470-2045(13)70386-3

from Cancer Research UK – Science blog http://ift.tt/2A8UySY

This entry is part 29 of 29 in the series Our milestones

In this instalment, we take look at how the START trials provided crucial evidence to change practice for women having radiotherapy for early stage breast cancer.

The journey from discovering x-rays to using them to treat cancer was a quick one.

It began in the winter of 1895 in a physicist’s lab in central Bavaria, Germany. While he was experimenting with electricity and gases, Professor Wilhelm Röntgen produced what he called ‘a new kind of ray’.

Word of the ray travelled quickly, and its use in medicine soon followed. Within 3 years of the discovery, the first documented case of using x-ray radiation against cancer emerged.

Researchers from Sweden reported that 6 patients with cancer in the nose and cheek had their tumours destroyed by a single, large dose of x-ray radiation. But that single radiation hit caused severe burns to their skin.

It was only a couple of decades later, in 1914, that these side effects were addressed.

In Lyon, a radiologist called Claudius Regaud had been thinking about ways to kill cancer cells using x-rays while sparing healthy cells.

After comparing how normal cells and cancer cells behave under radiation, he suggested that breaking up radiation treatments into many smaller doses might be just as effective as one big radiation hit. On top of that, he proposed that the breaks in treatment would give healthy cells time to recover and repair themselves from the radiation.

Regaud believed this combination was a kinder option. Little did he know that he’d invented a new way of giving radiotherapy called fractionation.

The Great War was now rumbling and alongside military duties, Regaud kept up his work on understanding the effects of radioactivity on human cells.

While peace came and went in Europe, a follower of Regaud in Manchester, called Ralston Paterson, started to experiment with radiation doses for treating cancer. From this he drew up a dosage system that determined how much radiation was needed to kill different types of tumours.

By now it was the 1940s and Britain was in a second world war.

Using his new knowledge of the different effects of radiation doses on tumours, Paterson started experimenting with fraction size. He used larger doses of radiation than Regaud and began working out how much should be given to patients in each session.

The beginning of START

Through the years, radiotherapy centres started to experiment with fractionation too, splitting the total dose of radiation into smaller ones.

Soon enough a wide range of radiotherapy regimens emerged across the globe.

Over in South Africa in the early 1950s, a scientist called Dr Lionel Cohen attempted to figure out what the vast majority of radiotherapy centres were doing. He gathered and compared information from hospitals throughout the world to see how effective fractionation was and what was the most common regimen.

By the ‘80s, the recommended radiotherapy schedule outside of the UK for breast cancer after surgery was giving 2 Gray (Gy) of radiation 25 times (or in 25 fractions) over 5 weeks. A Gy is a unit of radiation used to measure how much radiation energy a tissue absorbs. This meant the average patient received in total 50 Gy of radiation over the course of their treatment.

If you count small differences in prescriptions there was something like 34 different radiotherapy schedules in the UK in the 1980s, so we really needed to put the house in order.

Professor John Yarnold, The Institute of Cancer Research

Although this dose kept tumours under control, women often reported life-long scarring and hardening of their breast tissue.

Even after Cohen’s attempts to bring consistency to radiotherapy dosing, there still wasn’t much robust evidence to suggest which fraction size worked best, how many fractions a patient should receive and how quickly the treatment could be done.

It was clear the field needed some direction to establish a standard of care, but it wasn’t until around 30 years later that the tide started to change.

A team of researchers in Canada decided to go over Cohen’s work with a fine-tooth comb. They concluded that breast cancer responded to radiotherapy treatment differently compared to most other cancers.

If this was true, it could mean that the standard 25 dose regimen might not be the most effective way of treating patients.

“If you count small differences in prescriptions there were something like 34 different radiotherapy schedules in the UK in the 1980s, so we really needed to put the house in order,” recalls John Yarnold from the Institute of Cancer Research, London (ICR) and the Royal Marsden.

Yarnold set to work with a team at Cheltenham General Hospital to address these housekeeping challenges. They organised a randomised clinical trial with the help of 1410 patients receiving radiotherapy as part of their breast cancer treatment. They found that giving the total radiation dose in fewer hospital visits – meaning at each visit the patient received a larger dose than was previously being offered – was safe and effective.

This gave them the green light to get things moving.

They teamed up with their ICR colleague, Judith Bliss, and united experts from around the UK to set up two of the most influential radiotherapy breast cancer trials to date: the START Trials.

Using money from Cancer Research UK, the UK Medical Research Council and the UK Department of Health the trials would soon create enough evidence to change practice worldwide.

Team science

Between 1998 and 2003, 35 radiotherapy centres across the UK worked together to recruit 4450 women with early breast cancer for the two trials, called START A and START B.

This was the first time such a large number of radiotherapy experts put their heads together, and for Bliss and Yarnold this collaboration was key to the trials’ success.

“It was team science. That’s how you’re successful in medicine, by building a team,” says Yarnold.

In START A, women were randomly allocated to one of three groups after surgery. Each group received a different radiotherapy schedule.

In the first group, patients received 50 Gy of radiation in total. They had to visit the hospital 25 times and so at each session received 2 Gy of radiation, the international standard.

These patients received radiation in fractions which means a dose of radiation 2 Gy or less.

START A

Group 1: 2 Gy of radiation each hospital visit. 25 treatments in total over 5 weeks. 50 Gy in total

Group 2: 3 Gy of radiation each hospital visit. 13 treatments in total over 5 weeks. 39 Gy in total

Group 3: 3.2 Gy of radiation each hospital visit. 13 treatments in total over 5 weeks. 41.6 Gy in total

What made this trial different was that it tested the standard against ‘hypofractions’. Hypofractions are doses of radiation over 2 Gy.

This meant in the second and third groups, patients received higher radiation doses at each session – 3 and 3.2 Gy respectively.

Because the team wanted to spare damage to healthy tissue, which the standard 50 Gy was known to cause, they also chose a lower total dose for groups 2 and 3.

This meant only 13 fractions were needed, reducing hospital visits to 13 instead of the usual 25. Groups 2 and 3 received a total 39 and 41.6 Gy respectively.

The results showed that the cancer was under control in all three groups, making the schedule in group 2 the best as side effects were the least severe.

This proved that both breast cancer cells and healthy cells noticed the difference in fraction size.

Perhaps more importantly, it suggested that what had been deemed standard treatment was exposing women to an unnecessary amount of radiation.

Two studies are better than one

If organising one large-scale trial wasn’t enough, Yarnold and Bliss designed another, called START B, to run at the same time as START A.

“START B was actually the practice-changing trial when the 5-year results were published in 2008,” says Yarnold.

The test schedule of radiotherapy outlined in START B was already widely used in UK hospitals, but the team wanted to collect enough evidence to prove this was best for patients.

START B

Group 1: 2 Gy of radiation each hospital visit. 25 treatments in total over 5 weeks.

Group 2: 2.7 Gy of radiation each hospital visit. 15 treatments in total over 3 weeks.

Half of the 2215 women with early-stage breast cancer received a total of 40 Gy of radiation, over 3 weeks, in 15 fractions. That meant they got 2.7 Gy at each hospital visit.

As with START A, they compared this to the international regimen, 2 Gy per treatment, 25 times, over 5 weeks.

Again, the number of patients whose disease returned was similar in both groups, but those who received higher doses per visit over a shorter period of time (hypofractionation therapy) reported fewer side effects and a better quality of life 5 years on.

“The side effects were about 15-20 per cent less frequent in women who were given 15 fractions of 2.7 Gy,” says Yarnold, adding that women who received around 40 Gy had less scarring, less hardening of the breast and less change in the breast appearance.

But even though practice has moved towards the regimen in START B, one trial could not have been so successful without the other.

START B suggested that giving radiotherapy in fewer, higher doses was overall gentler on healthy tissues and that treatment could be just as successful when given over a shorter period of time.

START A proved that fraction size mattered when treating breast cancer.

“The results of START B have more weight because they’re entirely consistent with START A,” says Bliss.

To add even more weight to START’s results, doctors monitored all START A and B patients for 10 years. These results matched those at 5 years, and reassured the radiotherapy community that moving towards 15 hypofractions of 2.7 Gy was the way to go.

In 2009, the results were the tipping point for the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) to update its guidelines and recommend this schedule for all patients.

“There had been a general direction of travel and NICE’s decision helped standardise UK treatments,” says Bliss.

Now nearly all patients in the UK receive 15 fractions of radiotherapy after surgery for early stage breast cancer.

It wasn’t just the UK that START influenced.

“The spread is patchy but it’s now growing fast,” says Yarnold. “It’s also a standard of care for many patients in Norway and Sweden.”

Hypofractionation: a patient’s perspective

Thanks to the community of radiotherapy researchers, women all over the world can expect a better quality of life after this particular breast cancer treatment plan.

Chris was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2013, just a couple of years before her grandson was born.

“It all happened within a week,” she says. “My first reaction was to ask them to remove both breasts, but they said they wanted to try and shrink the tumour so they didn’t have to. “

I don’t have any scarring. I’m really lucky in that way.

– Chris, breast cancer survivor

After surgery to remove the tumour, Chris received radiotherapy in multiple fractions for three weeks, like the schedule that START B tested 10 years before.

“You have to go in every day for treatment, which is the most tiring bit. But luckily I had just been given my over 60s bus pass so the journey wasn’t too bad,” she says.

For her, the treatment was very quick and relatively comfortable. “I don’t spend a lot of time lying down and doing nothing so it was quite nice to have a rest!” she says.

Chris’ treatment plan meant she received less radiation overall with the aim of keeping her side effects to a minimum.

“I don’t have any scarring,” she says. “I’m really lucky in that way.

“You’d get a bit of a burn afterwards but apart from that I had no discomfort from the radiotherapy really.” Chris was back swimming and walking her dogs in no time.

“Research is everything!” she says. “I’m so lucky because I still have an amazing life. I have a lot to look forward to now.”

Only the beginning for START

The team isn’t stopping at START. Using evidence from the trials they hope to refine radiotherapy guidelines for breast cancer even further.

The risk of a patient’s disease coming back has dropped dramatically since the 1980s, from around 10 in 100 people seeing their cancer return at 5 years to now between 1 and 2 in 100 people.

The aim now is to find a way to identify those patients who are least likely to need radiotherapy as part of their treatment.

“This new study will use biomarkers and clinical data to predict the risk of disease return,” says Yarnold.“We’re now trying to find those women who don’t need any radiotherapy at all.”

Even though the START trials produced fantastic evidence that shaped treatment for women with early stage breast cancer, both Bliss and Yarnold agree their impact runs deeper.

They say the radiotherapy community was always close, but none of these trials would have been possible without the researchers that built the foundations around START.

“This wasn’t a one off partnership to deliver a clinical study,” says Bliss, adding that Cancer Research UK’s contribution was much wider than project funding.

“By helping us to develop partnerships back in the 80s we have created the infrastructure to continue and develop our practice-changing trials.”

It seems the START trials are defined by more than just chaning clinical practice. They mark the beginning of a research network that continues to move radiotherapy research forward and improve the lives of women with breast cancer.

Gabi

References

The START Trialists Group. (2008) The UK Standardisation of Breast Radiotherapy (START) Trial A of radiotherapy hypofractionation for treatment of early breast cancer: a randomised trial. Lancet. Oncol. doi:  10.1016/S1470-2045(08)70077-9

The START Trialists Group. (2008) The UK Standardisation of Breast radiotherapy (START) Trial B of radiotherapy hypofractionation for treatment of early breast cancer: a randomised trial. Lancet doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(08)60348-7

The START Trialists Group. (2013) The UK Standardisation of Breast Radiotherapy (START) trials of radiotherapy hypofractionation for treatment of early breast cancer: 10-year follow-up results of two randomised controlled trials. Lancet Oncol. doi: 10.1016/S1470-2045(13)70386-3

from Cancer Research UK – Science blog http://ift.tt/2A8UySY

Cloud-to-cloud shadow over China

Cloud-to-cloud shadow – September 10, 2017 – by Cammy Li in Hong Kong.

Our friend Matthew Chin in Hong Kong got in touch about a series of cloud shadow photos, taken by his friend Cammy Li (Star Cammy on Facebook). Cammy took the photos on September 10, 2017 at 7:55 a.m. HKT. These are shadows cast from cloud to cloud.

Here is Cammy’s original post on Facebook:

Matthew, who writes a blog on sky optics, created the two images below as an explanation of the shadow’s source. He also points to Les Cowley’s discussion of cloud shadows, on the wonderful website Atmospheric Optics. And, as we so often do, we ran this entire post past Les Cowley in advance for his stamp of approval. His comment about Matthew’s explanation:

Definitely correct!

Image #1. Matthew Chin wrote: “This is my explanation drawing: blue is the culprit cloud, red is its shadow cast on a lower layer of translucent cloud. Photos are taken around 07:55 HKT with sun in the east.”

Image #2. Cloud shadow explanation by Matthew Chin.

Bottom line: Photos of cloud shadows over Hong Kong, September 10, 2017, by Cammy Li. Explanation by Matthew Chin.

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/2iL7KGb

Cloud-to-cloud shadow – September 10, 2017 – by Cammy Li in Hong Kong.

Our friend Matthew Chin in Hong Kong got in touch about a series of cloud shadow photos, taken by his friend Cammy Li (Star Cammy on Facebook). Cammy took the photos on September 10, 2017 at 7:55 a.m. HKT. These are shadows cast from cloud to cloud.

Here is Cammy’s original post on Facebook:

Matthew, who writes a blog on sky optics, created the two images below as an explanation of the shadow’s source. He also points to Les Cowley’s discussion of cloud shadows, on the wonderful website Atmospheric Optics. And, as we so often do, we ran this entire post past Les Cowley in advance for his stamp of approval. His comment about Matthew’s explanation:

Definitely correct!

Image #1. Matthew Chin wrote: “This is my explanation drawing: blue is the culprit cloud, red is its shadow cast on a lower layer of translucent cloud. Photos are taken around 07:55 HKT with sun in the east.”

Image #2. Cloud shadow explanation by Matthew Chin.

Bottom line: Photos of cloud shadows over Hong Kong, September 10, 2017, by Cammy Li. Explanation by Matthew Chin.

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/2iL7KGb

Battered by extreme weather, Americans are more worried about climate change

The latest climate change survey from Yale and George Mason Universities is out, and it shows that Americans are still poorly-informed about the causes of global warming. Only 54% understand that it’s mostly human-caused, while 33% incorrectly believe global warming is due mainly to natural factors. 

In fact, a new study published in Nature Scientific Reports developed a real-time global warming index. It shows that humans are responsible for 1°C global surface warming over the past 150 years – approximately 100% of the warming we’ve observed. Lead author Karsten Haustein explained their new index and study in a blog post.

Americans are nevertheless growing increasingly concerned about climate change. A record 22% are very worried about it (double the number in the March 2015 survey), and 63% of Americans are at least somewhat worried about climate change. That’s probably because they perceive direct climate impacts – 64% of survey participants think that global warming is affecting the weather, and 33% said it’s having a big influence.

Global warming is intensifying extreme weather

Americans also connecting the dots to specific extreme weather events. About 54% said that climate change worsened the extreme heat waves, wildfires, and hurricanes that pummeled the country in 2017. 

They’re generally correct; in fact, a recent study by MIT climate scientist Kerry Emanuel found that global warming made the extreme precipitation associated with Hurricane Harvey (the largest rainfall of any US hurricane on record) more likely. Previously a 1-in-100 year event for Texas and 1-in-2000 year event for Houston, Harvey’s extreme precipitation has already become a 1-in-16 year event for Texas and a 1-in-325 year event for Houston – six times more likely due to human-caused global warming.

Overall, 42% of those surveyed believe that Americans are being harmed by global warming right now – an increase of 10% from the response in March 2015, and a record high in the survey that began in 2008. That increase is likely due to the beating America took from extreme heat waves, droughts, wildfires, hurricanes, and floods in 2017. It’s difficult to deny global warming when its effects are punching us in the face.

At the same time, only 15% of Americans realize that the expert consensus on human-caused global warming is over 90%. That’s an important result because the expert consensus is a ‘gateway belief.’ Research has shown that support for climate policy is linked to perceptions about scientific agreement on climate change.

Americans are pessimistic about the future climate

The survey also found that Americans are very pessimistic about the odds that we’ll successfully tackle the threats posed by global warming. While 78% realize that humans could potentially slow global warming, only 5% of Americans believe we’ll be successful in doing so. A quarter of those surveyed think that we’ll fail because people are unwilling to change their behavior, and 48% said it’s unclear at this point whether we’ll take the necessary action. 

Given the current state of affairs in the Trump administration, that pessimism is certainly justified. However, there are still reasons for hope, especially since the climate-denying Republican Party is beginning to lose its grip on power.

Click here to read the rest

from Skeptical Science http://ift.tt/2A2FN6m

The latest climate change survey from Yale and George Mason Universities is out, and it shows that Americans are still poorly-informed about the causes of global warming. Only 54% understand that it’s mostly human-caused, while 33% incorrectly believe global warming is due mainly to natural factors. 

In fact, a new study published in Nature Scientific Reports developed a real-time global warming index. It shows that humans are responsible for 1°C global surface warming over the past 150 years – approximately 100% of the warming we’ve observed. Lead author Karsten Haustein explained their new index and study in a blog post.

Americans are nevertheless growing increasingly concerned about climate change. A record 22% are very worried about it (double the number in the March 2015 survey), and 63% of Americans are at least somewhat worried about climate change. That’s probably because they perceive direct climate impacts – 64% of survey participants think that global warming is affecting the weather, and 33% said it’s having a big influence.

Global warming is intensifying extreme weather

Americans also connecting the dots to specific extreme weather events. About 54% said that climate change worsened the extreme heat waves, wildfires, and hurricanes that pummeled the country in 2017. 

They’re generally correct; in fact, a recent study by MIT climate scientist Kerry Emanuel found that global warming made the extreme precipitation associated with Hurricane Harvey (the largest rainfall of any US hurricane on record) more likely. Previously a 1-in-100 year event for Texas and 1-in-2000 year event for Houston, Harvey’s extreme precipitation has already become a 1-in-16 year event for Texas and a 1-in-325 year event for Houston – six times more likely due to human-caused global warming.

Overall, 42% of those surveyed believe that Americans are being harmed by global warming right now – an increase of 10% from the response in March 2015, and a record high in the survey that began in 2008. That increase is likely due to the beating America took from extreme heat waves, droughts, wildfires, hurricanes, and floods in 2017. It’s difficult to deny global warming when its effects are punching us in the face.

At the same time, only 15% of Americans realize that the expert consensus on human-caused global warming is over 90%. That’s an important result because the expert consensus is a ‘gateway belief.’ Research has shown that support for climate policy is linked to perceptions about scientific agreement on climate change.

Americans are pessimistic about the future climate

The survey also found that Americans are very pessimistic about the odds that we’ll successfully tackle the threats posed by global warming. While 78% realize that humans could potentially slow global warming, only 5% of Americans believe we’ll be successful in doing so. A quarter of those surveyed think that we’ll fail because people are unwilling to change their behavior, and 48% said it’s unclear at this point whether we’ll take the necessary action. 

Given the current state of affairs in the Trump administration, that pessimism is certainly justified. However, there are still reasons for hope, especially since the climate-denying Republican Party is beginning to lose its grip on power.

Click here to read the rest

from Skeptical Science http://ift.tt/2A2FN6m

Incredible visualization of hurricanes and aerosols

Tracking the aerosols carried on the winds let scientists see the currents in our atmosphere. This way-cool visualization, by the NASA Goddard Media Studios, follows sea salt, dust, and smoke from July 31 to November 1, 2017, showing how these particles are transported across the globe. Check out the hurricanes!

This visualization is a result of combining NASA satellite data with sophisticated mathematical models that describe the underlying physical processes.

Enjoying EarthSky so far? Sign up for our free daily newsletter today!

Donate to EarthSky: Your support means the world to us

Bottom line: NASA timelapse showing aerosols moving around Earth during the 2017 hurricane season.

Via NASA Goddard Media Studios

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/2BglK2D

Tracking the aerosols carried on the winds let scientists see the currents in our atmosphere. This way-cool visualization, by the NASA Goddard Media Studios, follows sea salt, dust, and smoke from July 31 to November 1, 2017, showing how these particles are transported across the globe. Check out the hurricanes!

This visualization is a result of combining NASA satellite data with sophisticated mathematical models that describe the underlying physical processes.

Enjoying EarthSky so far? Sign up for our free daily newsletter today!

Donate to EarthSky: Your support means the world to us

Bottom line: NASA timelapse showing aerosols moving around Earth during the 2017 hurricane season.

Via NASA Goddard Media Studios

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/2BglK2D

Show friends and family 2 planets

Around Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. – November 23, 2017 – impress your family and friends by finding and pointing out the most elusive planet, Mercury, and a second planet, Saturn, in the west after sunset. Both worlds were passed by the moon earlier this week, and both are still up there after sunset, low in the western sky.

On November 23, the waxing crescent moon will be the first celestial body to pop out after sunset. The lit portion of the moon will be pointing in the general direction of Saturn and Mercury. These worlds are close to the horizon, and they set soon after sunset, so timing is everything here. Both planets should be visible to the unaided eye, but any amount of haze or murk on your horizon will obscure them. Binoculars may come in handy, if you have them.

Mercury is the innermost planet of the solar system and never strays far from the sun in Earth’s sky. For much of the time, this world is lost in the sun’s glare. Right now is good time to catch Mercury, though, because this planet is swinging to its greatest evening elongation, or its greatest angular distance from the setting sun. Depending on where you live worldwide, Mercury will reach its greatest elongation on November 23 or 24. More about that below.

Saturn, meanwhile, is toward the end of its evening apparition for 2017. It’s vanishing into evening twilight, but slowly. It’ll be visible another few weeks, probably, for those with clear skies all the way to the western horizon after sunset.

View larger. | Ken Christison in northeastern North Carolina caught the moon and Mercury on November 19, 2017. He wrote: “Mercury is to the right of the 2nd tree from the left.”

View larger. | Eliot Herman in Tucson, Arizona caught the one-day crescent moon (with earthshine) on November 19, 2017 – with Mercury (to left) and Saturn (above left). Captured with a Nikon D850 and a Nikon 105 mm VR macro lens. The NEF image was converted to TIF and deconvoluted prior to Photoshop adjustment.

Mercury first entered our evening sky on October 8, 2017. Its evening reign will end on December 13, when the planet crosses (more or less) between us and the sun and thus enters the morning sky (it won’t pass directly between us and the sun this time, by the way; if it did there’d be a Mercury transit, like the one in May 2016).

At its greatest evening elongation (November 24 at about 0 UTC), Mercury reaches a maximum of 22^o east of the sun. For reference, your fist at an arm length spans about 10^o of sky.

So Mercury is now farthest east of the sun for this evening apparition, shining rather low in the west at sunset and staying out for its maximum time after sundown. At mid-northern latitudes, Mercury sets somewhat more than an hour after sunset. At the equator, Mercury sets about one and one-half hours after the sun; and at temperate latitudes in the Southern Hemisphere, Mercury sets about one and three-quarter hours after the sun. Click here for an almanac giving you Mercury’s setting time in your sky.

If all goes well, you might see Mercury low in the west with the eye alone within an hour after sunset.

But don’t mistake Saturn, which shines higher up in the western sky, for Mercury. Although Mercury shines a solid two times brighter than Saturn, Mercury sits deeper in the glow of evening twilight.

If you miss Mercury and/or Saturn this evening, try again after sunset for the next week or two. And then keep watching …

Mercury and Saturn will come to within 3^o of one another on November 28. Three degrees on the sky’s dome is about the width of your thumb at an arm’s length from your eye. That’s a small enough gap for these two worlds to take stage in a single binocular field of view.

View larger. | By November 20, the moon had edged up past Saturn. Richard Hasbrouck in Truchas, New Mexico wrote: “My wife said ‘look out to the southwest,’ and there it was. Grabbed camera and dashed out to the end of the drive (to avoid power lines). Saturn is just visible below and to the left. Lights of Los Alamos are in the lower right.”

Bottom line: Watch for Mercury (Saturn) after sunset on November 23, 2017 and keep watching as these two worlds come closer together

Bottom line: Given clear skies, try your luck at catching Mercury (and Saturn) in the western sky after sunset.

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/2fSvzee

Around Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. – November 23, 2017 – impress your family and friends by finding and pointing out the most elusive planet, Mercury, and a second planet, Saturn, in the west after sunset. Both worlds were passed by the moon earlier this week, and both are still up there after sunset, low in the western sky.

On November 23, the waxing crescent moon will be the first celestial body to pop out after sunset. The lit portion of the moon will be pointing in the general direction of Saturn and Mercury. These worlds are close to the horizon, and they set soon after sunset, so timing is everything here. Both planets should be visible to the unaided eye, but any amount of haze or murk on your horizon will obscure them. Binoculars may come in handy, if you have them.

Mercury is the innermost planet of the solar system and never strays far from the sun in Earth’s sky. For much of the time, this world is lost in the sun’s glare. Right now is good time to catch Mercury, though, because this planet is swinging to its greatest evening elongation, or its greatest angular distance from the setting sun. Depending on where you live worldwide, Mercury will reach its greatest elongation on November 23 or 24. More about that below.

Saturn, meanwhile, is toward the end of its evening apparition for 2017. It’s vanishing into evening twilight, but slowly. It’ll be visible another few weeks, probably, for those with clear skies all the way to the western horizon after sunset.

View larger. | Ken Christison in northeastern North Carolina caught the moon and Mercury on November 19, 2017. He wrote: “Mercury is to the right of the 2nd tree from the left.”

View larger. | Eliot Herman in Tucson, Arizona caught the one-day crescent moon (with earthshine) on November 19, 2017 – with Mercury (to left) and Saturn (above left). Captured with a Nikon D850 and a Nikon 105 mm VR macro lens. The NEF image was converted to TIF and deconvoluted prior to Photoshop adjustment.

Mercury first entered our evening sky on October 8, 2017. Its evening reign will end on December 13, when the planet crosses (more or less) between us and the sun and thus enters the morning sky (it won’t pass directly between us and the sun this time, by the way; if it did there’d be a Mercury transit, like the one in May 2016).

At its greatest evening elongation (November 24 at about 0 UTC), Mercury reaches a maximum of 22^o east of the sun. For reference, your fist at an arm length spans about 10^o of sky.

So Mercury is now farthest east of the sun for this evening apparition, shining rather low in the west at sunset and staying out for its maximum time after sundown. At mid-northern latitudes, Mercury sets somewhat more than an hour after sunset. At the equator, Mercury sets about one and one-half hours after the sun; and at temperate latitudes in the Southern Hemisphere, Mercury sets about one and three-quarter hours after the sun. Click here for an almanac giving you Mercury’s setting time in your sky.

If all goes well, you might see Mercury low in the west with the eye alone within an hour after sunset.

But don’t mistake Saturn, which shines higher up in the western sky, for Mercury. Although Mercury shines a solid two times brighter than Saturn, Mercury sits deeper in the glow of evening twilight.

If you miss Mercury and/or Saturn this evening, try again after sunset for the next week or two. And then keep watching …

Mercury and Saturn will come to within 3^o of one another on November 28. Three degrees on the sky’s dome is about the width of your thumb at an arm’s length from your eye. That’s a small enough gap for these two worlds to take stage in a single binocular field of view.

View larger. | By November 20, the moon had edged up past Saturn. Richard Hasbrouck in Truchas, New Mexico wrote: “My wife said ‘look out to the southwest,’ and there it was. Grabbed camera and dashed out to the end of the drive (to avoid power lines). Saturn is just visible below and to the left. Lights of Los Alamos are in the lower right.”

Bottom line: Watch for Mercury (Saturn) after sunset on November 23, 2017 and keep watching as these two worlds come closer together

Bottom line: Given clear skies, try your luck at catching Mercury (and Saturn) in the western sky after sunset.

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/2fSvzee