Ocean acidification (OA) threatens the persistence of calcifying marine ecosystems across the planet. Current predictions on the impacts of OA have limited ecological relevance because they are often based on models of the open ocean, where environmental conditions are relatively stable over a diel cycle. However, the majority of vulnerable marine plants and animals exist in nearshore ecosystems where daily fluctuations, resulting from biological carbon production and consumption, can exceed the changes in pH predicted for the end of the century. VARIO will implement a novel approach to elucidate the role of pH variability in shaping the structure and function of a globally distributed ecosystem and its response to OA. VARIO will use rhodolith (maërl) beds in Scotland and Greenland as a model-calcifying ecosystem to characterize the magnitude of natural pH variability inherent in nearshore coastal ecosystems and to explore how such variability may facilitate organismal and ecosystem resilience to OA. VARIO will use an interdisciplinary approach that unites physical and biological oceanography with biogeochemistry to measure natural pH fluctuations and relate that variability with baseline organismal and ecosystem-scale calcification processes. VARIO will then experimentally quantify the effects of OA, overlaid upon natural pH variability, on rhodolith ecosystem structure and function. The findings of VARIO are directly relevant to nations of the European Union, where rhodolith beds are widely distributed and economically valuable. The ecosystem services rhodolith beds afford to the EU, such as supporting commercial fisheries and industry, are directly compromised by OA, and VARIO will provide critical information to inform mitigation and management strategies under OA. By using a globally distributed ecosystem as a model and by incorporating natural pH variability, VARIO will provide the first ecologically relevant context to the impacts OA on nearshore ecosystems.

The project, HAPTEXT, examines how periodicals - texts printed at routine intervals - circulated to create the first age of 'viral' media in the eighteenth century. Within the anglophone world, periodicals have long been recognised as a vital source of information on political, social and economic matters in a period heralded as the Age of Enlightenment. Yet periodicals are yet to be fully integrated into cultural studies of the eighteenth century and there has been no systematic study of how information circulated across titles to reach wider audiences, or how readers actively responded to public papers by annotating the printed page or writing letters for publication. The project objectives are to: 1. Establish a new methodology for periodical studies that reveals how individual readers interacted with periodicals 2. Demonstrate how content escaped the control of its authors, being remediated and transmediated to reach new audiences 3. Reveal how radical ideas circulated between publications and between readers via the periodical 4. Build the first bibliographic database dedicated to locating periodical publications Using close textual analysis, computational history and corpus linguistics, HAPTEXT reveals how interactions with and upon the printed page intersected with literary endeavour to produce ‘viral’ media. The anglophone context provides a rich cache of material for study, revealing the changing priorities and anxieties of an island nation in an increased age of globalisation and period of colonial wars (American and French Revolution, Napoleonic War). Through this Fellowship, the researcher, Dr Jennifer Buckley, will develop the training, high-impact dissemination, and experience commensurate with a leading researcher of her career stage. The researcher will be based in the School of Critical Studies, University of Glasgow, and supervised by Prof. Matthew Sangster, a leading expert in Book History, authorship and Digital Humanities.

Poor developmental conditions have been shown to impact subsequent health, fertility and lifespan, both in human and animal models. However, the molecular, developmental and physiological mechanisms underlying these adverse effects on health later in life are still poorly understood. Since mammalian models do not allow manipulations of embryo development independently of maternal influence and nutritional state (i.e. without the mother potentially compensating for any manipulation), I will pioneer a new avian model using experimental controls of embryo growth and development through modulation of incubation temperature. The key goals of this postdoctoral project are: (i) To determine the extent to which developmental conditions (i.e. slow vs. fast embryo growth rate, developmental instability) induce deleterious effects on health, fertility and rate of ageing in later life. (ii) To identify the molecular and/or physiological mediators of such adverse effects, by targeting parameters related to the ageing process (mitochondrial functioning, oxidative stress, telomere erosion and cellular stress resistance) and investigating the ‘sparing of vital organs’ hypothesis. (iii) To test both pre- and post-natal antioxidant therapies as preventive strategies to limit the deleterious impact of poor growth conditions on subsequent health, fertility and rate of ageing. This project will use a novel approach to reveal completely new insights into the importance of developmental conditions for subsequent life-history trajectories and rates of ageing. It will also provide important insights for the poultry industry about the impact of developmental conditions and in ovo antioxidant supplementation on subsequent productivity and fertility.

We outline a 5 year programme that introduces a new platform for the preparation, understanding, and exploitation of precisely defined nano-molecules / materials based upon the assembly of molecular metal oxide precursors (polyoxometalates) under non-equilibrium conditions with well-defined physical properties using automated intelligent feedback. We will elucidate the mechanism of assembly of these gigantic molecules and devise a set of rules similar to the magic numbers found in gold nanoclusters, using these to break the 10 nm size barrier for a single molecule. Targeted properties include photochemical and electrochemical sensors, bistable molecules, doped traditional oxides with polyoxometalates, and new catalysts including water oxidation via a Universal Building Block (UBB) approach that links properties of the building blocks with emergent properties of the resulting clusters and materials for the first time. The new approach includes the conversion of batch to flow synthesis not only for automation, but to understand fundamental mechanistic aspects, and to use artificial intelligence algorithms to help move through the myriad of possible combinations (without needing to synthesise every possible molecule). The SMART-POM approach is therefore not merely automation of one-pot chemistry, but an entirely new paradigm building on our recent developments and will allow us to move through a vast combinatorial space effectively only locating areas of novelty via feedback control. This feedback will be used to discover, design, and develop complex, adaptive and functional metal oxide-based materials based upon sensory feedback from the physical properties measurements. Thus SMART-POM will open up a whole new synthetic space, give mechanistic understanding, and allow the discovery of molecules with potential real-world applications. Finally, we will aim to extend the SMART-POM paradigm to other areas of chemistry which will benefit from the search for novelty.