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Climate change is an emerging global health crisis, disproportionately affecting low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) where health outcomes are increasingly compromised by environmental stressors such as pollution, natural disasters, and human migration. With a focus on promoting health equity, Global Surgery advocates for expanding access to surgical care and enhancing health outcomes, particularly in resource-limited and disaster-affected areas like LMICs. The healthcare industry—and more specifically, surgical care—significantly contributes to the global carbon footprint, primarily through resource-intensive settings, i.e. operating rooms that generate greenhouse gases and substantial medical waste. Therefore, Global Surgery efforts aimed at improving surgical access through an increase in surgical volumes may inadvertently exacerbate health challenges for vulnerable populations by further contributing to environmental degradation. This predicament is particularly pronounced in LMICs, who already suffer from a disproportionate share of the global burden of disease, and where the demand for surgery is rising without corresponding resilient infrastructure. LMICs face a double jeopardy of health inequity coupled with climate vulnerability. As a movement positioned to improve health around the world, Global Surgery has an increasingly significant role in envisioning and ensuring a sustainable future. Global Surgery initiatives must prioritise sustainable infrastructure in both high-income countries (HICs) and LMICs, all while accounting for the unequal polluting contributions between HICs and LMICs and, consequently, moral responsibilities moving forward. Moreover, through targeting upstream causes of poor health at urban and perioperative levels, Global Surgery’s interventions may help to reduce the global burden of disease—avoiding preventable surgeries and their carbon footprints from the outset. Altogether, Global Surgery and climate change are two matters of social justice whose solutions must synergistically centralise the health of both the planet and its most vulnerable people.

Abstract In the next 25 years an unprecedented number of new marine artificial structures, over 75,000 offshore wind turbines alone, are planned to meet global net zero targets. Structures are required to last for multiple decades in the hostile marine environment; where the largest cost across their whole lifecycle is on operations and maintenance dependent on accessibility in calm seas. However, the role of climate change on accessibility, and thus operational cost, has not been resolved. Here we provide the first study of future accessibility; evaluated from global climate model driven wave modelling, using the high emission scenario (RCP8.5). We found that climate change drives significant regional variation in accessibility, with the northern hemisphere benefiting from a 6% increase in operating windows whilst accessibility in parts of the southern hemisphere is reduced by 6-9%. These findings will help offshore developers and stakeholders incorporate adaptions to climate change as part of strategic planning practices.

In the quest for more efficient solar thermal systems, accurately determining the thermal emittance of low-emissive materials is crucial in determining the power losses. This paper describes the calorimetric method designed to precisely measure the thermal emittance of Selective Solar Absorbers (SSAs) to be used in High Vacuum Flat Plate Collectors (HVFPCs). The method’s capability is demonstrated through the successful correction of thermal emittance values for copper samples of varying sizes, including dimensions down to 49 cm2. Results highlight the method’s potential to significantly reduce measurement errors associated with small-size and/or low-emittance samples, providing a path forward to improve the design and efficiency of SSAs. This research marks a significant step in advancing solar thermal technology by enabling emittance measurements with a precision better than 0.003, which is essential for the development of high-performance solar thermal absorbers. The method has also been applied to correct the thermal emittance value of SSA measured in previous measurement campaigns, and it allows a better estimation of the SSA efficiency conversion curve.

Degradation issues correlated to microstructural changes are the main obstacles to solid oxide fuel cell and electrolyser applications, making their identification and understanding fundamental steps. Coupling experimental activities with modelling, this work analyses the state-of-the-art Ni-YSZ (Yttria-Stabilized Zirconia)/YSZ/CGO (Cerium Gadolinium Oxide)/LSCF (Lanthanum Strontium Cobalt Ferrite)-CGO-based cell after 1000 h of galvanostatic electrolysis operation at fixed temperature and high steam composition in the inlet gas. Following a multiscale approach, the system behaviour is characterized through electrochemical impedance spectra and polarization curves as well as studying microstructure evolution, with a focus on Ni-cermet functional layer in view of Ni instability detected as the main degradation cause. A comparison with a cell consisting of the same initial geometrical structure and materials but aged in fuel cell mode allows to highlight the influence of operating mode and parameters on Ni-YSZ microstructure. Ni particle size and phase fraction variations experimentally observed on the electrode surface are correlated to water content and applied polarization simulated local values. Ni uneven distribution at the electrolyte interface and particle coarsening, above all, lead to an increase in polarization loss under electrolysis and fuel cell mode, respectively, since both penalise the charge transfer reaction and migration.

Dataset supporting publication of manuscript_GCB-B-RA-24-138

Climate change is driving many species to shift their geographical ranges poleward to maintain their environmental niche. However, for endemic species with restricted ranges, like the Critically Endangered whitefin swellshark (Cephaloscyllium albipinnum), endemic to southeastern Australia, such dispersal may be limited. Nevertheless, there is a poor understanding of how C. albipinnum might spatially adjust its distribution in response to climate change or whether suitable refugia exist for this species in the future. Therefore, to address this gap, this study utilised maximum entropy (MaxEnt) modelling to determine the potential distribution of suitable habitat for C. albipinnum under present-day (2010–2020) climate conditions and for future conditions, under six shared socioeconomic pathways (SSP1-1.9, SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, SSP3-7.0, SSP4-6.0 and SSP5-8.5) for the middle (2040–2050) and end (2090–2100) of the century. Under present-day conditions (2010–2020), our model predicted a core distribution of potentially suitable habitat for C. albipinnum within the Great Australian Bight (GAB), with benthic primary productivity and surface ocean temperature identified as key distribution drivers. However, under all SSP scenarios, future projections indicated an expected range shift of at least 72 km, up to 1,087 km in an east-southeast direction towards Tasmania (TAS). In all future climate scenarios (except SSP1-1.9 by 2100), suitable habitat is expected to decline, especially in the high-emission scenario (SSP5-8.5), which anticipates a loss of over 70% of suitable habitat. Consequently, all future climate scenarios (except SSP1-1.9 by 2100) projected a decrease in suitable habitat within a currently designated marine protected area (MPA). These losses ranged from 0.6% under SSP1-1.9 by 2050 to a substantial 89.7% loss in coverage under SSP5-8.5 by 2100, leaving just 2.5% of suitable habitat remaining within MPAs. With C. albipinnum already facing a high risk of extinction, these findings underscore its vulnerability to future climate change. Our results highlight the urgency of implementing adaptive conservation measures and management strategies that consider the impacts of climate change on this species.

Science is now in a new era of exposome research that strives to build a more all-inclusive, panoramic view in the quest for answers; this is especially true in the field of toxicology. Alcohol exposure researchers have been examining the multivariate co-exposures that may either exacerbate or initiate alcohol-related tissue/organ injuries. This manuscript presents selected key variables that represent the Alcohol Exposome. The primary variables that make up the Alcohol Exposome can include comorbidities such as cigarettes, poor diet, occupational hazards, environmental hazards, infectious agents, and aging. In addition to representing multiple factors, the Alcohol Exposome examines the various types of intercellular communications that are carried from one organ system to another and may greatly impact the types of injuries and metabolites caused by alcohol exposure. The intent of defining the Alcohol Exposome is to bring the newly expanded definition of Exposomics, meaning the study of the exposome, to the field of alcohol research and to emphasize the need for examining research results in a non-isolated environment representing a more relevant manner in which all human physiology exists.

For decades, Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated plant transformation has played an integral role in advancing fundamental and applied plant biology. The recent omnipresent emergence of synthetic biology, which relies on plant transformation to manipulate plant DNA and gene expression for novel product biosynthesis, has further propelled basic as well as applied interests in plant transformation technologies. The strong demand for a faster design-build-test-learn cycle, the essence of synthetic biology, is, however, still ill-matched with the long-standing issues of high tissue culture recalcitrance and low transformation efficiency of a wide range of plant species especially food, fiber and energy crops. To maximize the utility of plant material and improve the transformation productivity per unit plant form, we studied the regeneration and transformation efficiency of different types of explants, including leaf, stem, petiole, and root from Populus, a woody perennial bioenergy crop. Our results show that root explants, in addition to the above-ground tissues, have considerable regeneration capacity and amenability to A. tumefaciens and, the resulting transformants have largely comparable morphology, reporter gene expression, and transcriptome profile, independent of the explant source tissue. Transcriptome analyses mapped to regeneration stages and transformation efficiencies further revealed the expression of the auxin and cytokinin signaling and various developmental pathway genes in leaf and root explants undergoing early organogenesis. We further report high-potential candidate genes that may potentially be associated with higher regeneration and transformation efficiency. Overall, our study shows that explants from above- and belowground organs of a Populus plant are suitable for genetic transformation and tissue culture regeneration, and together with the underlying transcriptome data open new routes to maximize plant explant utilization, stable transformation productivity, and plant transformation efficiency.