Designer benzodiazepines (DBZDs) are a class of new psychoactive substances (NPS) designed as legal alternatives to prescription BZDs. Bromazolam has been the most prevalent DBZD detected on the recreational market around the world; however, a new DBZD, ethylbromazolam (8-bromo-1-ethyl-6-phenyl-4 H-[1,2,4]triazolo[4,3-a][1,4]benzodiazepine; also known as bromoethylazolam) has recently emerged. In this study, the emergence of e...

Coral bleaching events, in which symbionts are lost from host tissues, have become more frequent and severe because of climate change—specifically, elevated temperatures. How such events impact biogenic volatile organic compound (BVOC) emissions, compounds that can function as metabolic signalling elements, remains underexplored. Here we used gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC–MS) to characterise the suite o...

Introduction Maritime transport is a major source of air pollutants yet remains one of the least regulated sectors globally. In the North Sea, vessel activity associated with offshore energy infrastructure decommissioning is expected to increase over the next decade. However, vessel-specific emissions during these activities remain poorly quantified, with existing approaches relying largely on coarse-scale estimates. This stud...

The beating of the heart is driven by sliding between myosin-containing thick filaments and actin-containing thin filaments and at the single-molecule level by the ‘powerstroke’ in the lever arm of the myosin head, which tilts while its catalytic domain is attached to actin. This tilting lever-arm paradigm was developed before the molecular structure of the thick filament had been determined, and excluded the interactions betw...

Rationale Affective behavioral effects of kappa-opioid receptor (KOR) stimulation have been found to vary between the rostral and caudal nucleus accumbens (NAc) shell, but this has so far only been demonstrated in males. Objectives To examine the effects of KOR activation in subregions of the NAc shell on affective and motivated behavior in females. Methods In one group of Long-Evans rats, females were given access to 20% etha...

Global food security is a major challenge in the 21st century, exacerbated by increasing frequency and intensity of extreme climatic events under climate change. The extreme climatic events around flowering, such as intense heatwaves and droughts, threaten crop yields by impacting reproductive development and grain setting. Our study estimated the potential impacts of short-term, high impact extreme temperature and drought eve...

Although cratons owe their longevity to thick, depleted and consequently buoyant sub-continental lithospheric mantle, their extents are commonly indicated by the known distribution of crustal rocks. However, the limits of a mapped cratonic area often do not match the seismically imaged thick sub-continental lithospheric mantle roots. New mantle xenolith petrology and geochemistry, combined with continental scale geophysical da...

Anthropogenic impacts are increasingly affecting deep‐sea environments, including seafloor sediment disturbances by bottom trawling and seafloor mining. Fieldwork in the ‘Resilience Of Benthic Ecosystems to Sedimentation’ (ROBES) project were conducted in 2018–2020 on the 400 m‐deep Chatham Rise crest, eastern Aotearoa New Zealand. Water column turbidity data, sediment traps on near‐seabed moorings and benthic landers and surf...

Expansion of extractive industries to deep‐sea environments will lead to increased stresses on seafloor ecosystems. We examined changes in environmental parameters following direct and indirect experimental benthic disturbance using a modified plough on the Chatham Rise (∼450 m water depth), Aotearoa/New Zealand. Measurements included sediment community oxygen consumption (SCOC), nutrient fluxes, macro‐infauna community compos...

One of the most widespread and abundant habitat forming deep‐sea corals in the South Pacific region is Solenosmilia variabilis . The age of this species was assessed using radiocarbon content ( 14 C) on long dead, recently dead, and live branch sections of coral reef matrix sampled from the New Zealand region. Conventional 14 C colony ages (yrs BP), for the living, recently dead, and long dead samples, ranged from 803 to 1186...

Growing global demand for deep‐sea resources may lead to increased pressure on benthic ecosystems. Here we examined changes in meiofaunal communities following an in situ physical disturbance experiment. A significant change in meiofaunal community structure in surface (0‐1 cm) and subsurface (1‐5 cm) sediments was observed immediately following the disturbance at both the directly and indirectly disturbed sites and adjacent p...

With the possibility of deep‐sea mining of mineral resources occurring, it is necessary to understand potential impacts on benthic communities. Previous simulated mining experiments revealed direct benthic impacts; however, indirect impacts of sedimentation are not well understood. A disturbance experiment was conducted on Chatham Rise, New Zealand, to assess the resilience of benthic communities to sedimentation that could re...

Seabed‐contact activities operating in the deep sea can generate sediment plumes that pose varying levels of threat to benthic fauna. Corals are important components of deep‐sea ecosystems and can be particularly sensitive to elevated suspended sediment concentrations. In this study, we exposed colony fragments of the New Zealand deep‐sea scleractinian Goniocorella dumosa to four‐day pulses of four target sediment concentratio...

The Subtropical Front (STF) and associated biological productivity are topographically locked to the Chatham Rise. Year‐to‐year differences of upper ocean dynamics and associated responses of phytoplankton are valuable for understanding variability in fisheries biomass as well as providing new knowledge of environmental condition for potential seabed mining in this keystone ecosystem. In‐situ observations collected over three...

Mice bred in 2021 were tested by the Interventions Testing Program (ITP) for possible lifespan benefits of 2BAct (2BA), dichloroacetate (DCA), Epicatechin (EPI), Forskolin (FSK), Halofuginone (HAL) and Mitoglitazone (MIT). All agents were administered in the diet ad libitum beginning at 7 months of age. In male mice, EPI increased median lifespan by ~ 5%, and HAL and MIT each increased median lifespan by ~ 9%. EPI and HAL, but...