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Like many National Park Service sites, Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument in Nevada has associated off-site legacy paleontological collections in museum repositories across North America. These legacy paleontological collections, which were created during past expeditions, are at risk of becoming forgotten or inaccessible, yet they hold the potential to revisit old questions and old sites utilizing new techniques, methods, and ideas. The authors present a case study that outlines a suggested framework to reconcile problematic or underutilized legacy paleontological collections based on the 2020–2023 inventory of the Southwest Museum Expedition Tule Springs Collection curated at the Autry Museum of the American West. The authors also explore the effectiveness of an interdisciplinary approach to paleontological resource management. Digitization of associated historic archives and photographs can help assign updated geologic context to unprovenienced fossils, as well as locate historic paleontological sites for conservation and study. Legacy paleontological collections are also artifacts of the time of collection; the cultural context of fossil collections can be just as important as their geologic context. Although new data collection is beneficial for scientific inquiry and science-based natural resource management strategies, the importance of well-understood and accessible legacy paleontological collections for these efforts cannot be overstated. Revisiting these collections can facilitate scientific discovery by providing more accurate and comprehensive data to park staff and researchers. Paleontological and museum management programs and the scientific community will benefit from bridging the past and the present through an interdisciplinary approach.

Abstract Animal studies have demonstrated that unilateral hearing loss can induce changes in neural response amplitude of the mature central auditory system (CAS). However, there is limited physiological evidence of these neural gain changes in the auditory cortex of human adults. The present study investigated the impact of chronic, unilateral conductive hearing impairment on cortical auditory evoked potentials (CAEPs) recorded from 15 adults (21–65 years old) in response to a 1 kHz tone (80 ms duration) presented to the impaired ear via a bone conduction transducer. The amplitude and latency of the main CAEP components were compared to those obtained from normal hearing age-matched control participants. Both P1-N1 and N1-P2 amplitudes were significantly larger in the hearing impaired relative to the control participants. Differences between groups in the mean latencies of P1, N1, and P2 were not statistically significant. These results are the first to provide direct evidence of increased neural response amplitude in the adult human auditory cortex in the presence of unilateral conductive hearing loss. Importantly, the study shows that central gain changes are a direct result of deprivation of sound rather than cochlear or neural pathology. Highlights • Increased amplitudes of CAEP in adults with unilateral conductive hearing impairment. • Homeostatic plasticity is proposed as the mechanism of adaptation. • Cortical responsiveness can change in the absence of a neural pathology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peatlands are spatially heterogeneous ecosystems that develop due to a complex set of autogenic physical and biogeochemical processes and allogenic factors such as the climate and topography. They are significant stocks of global soil carbon, and therefore predicting the depth of peatlands is an important part of establishing an accurate assessment of their magnitude. Yet there have been few attempts to account for both internal and external processes when predicting the depth of peatlands. Using blanket peatlands in Great Britain as a case study, we compare a linear and geostatistical (spatial) model and several sets of covariates applicable for peatlands around the world that have developed over hilly or undulating terrain. We hypothesized that the spatial model would act as a proxy for the autogenic processes in peatlands that can mediate the accumulation of peat on plateaus or shallow slopes. Our findings show that the spatial model performs better than the linear model in all cases—root mean square errors (RMSE) are lower, and 95% prediction intervals are narrower. In support of our hypothesis, the spatial model also better predicts the deeper areas of peat, and we show that its predictive performance in areas of deep peat is dependent on depth observations being spatially autocorrelated. Where they are not, the spatial model performs only slightly better than the linear model. As a result, we recommend that practitioners carrying out depth surveys fully account for the variation of topographic features in prediction locations, and that sampling approach adopted enables observations to be spatially autocorrelated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The most carbon (C)‐dense ecosystems of Amazonia are areas characterized by the presence of peatlands. However, Amazonian peatland ecosystems are poorly understood and are threatened by human activities. Here, we present an investigation into long‐term ecohydrological controls on C accumulation in an Amazonian peat dome. This site is the oldest peatland yet discovered in Amazonia (peat initiation ca. 8.9 ka BP), and developed in three stages: (i) peat initiated in an abandoned river channel with open water and aquatic plants; (ii) inundated forest swamp; and (iii) raised peat dome (since ca. 3.9 ka BP). Local burning occurred at least three times in the past 4,500 years. Two phases of particularly rapid C accumulation (ca. 6.6–6.1 and ca. 4.9–3.9 ka BP), potentially resulting from increased net primary productivity, were seemingly driven by drier conditions associated with widespread drought events. The association of drought phases with major ecosystem state shifts (open water wetland–forest swamp–peat dome) suggests a potential climatic control on the developmental trajectory of this tropical peatland. A third drought phase centred on ca. 1.8–1.1 ka BP led to markedly reduced C accumulation and potentially a hiatus during the peat dome stage. Our results suggest that future droughts may lead to phases of rapid C accumulation in some inundated tropical peat swamps, although this can lead ultimately to a shift to ombrotrophy and a subsequent return to slower C accumulation. Conversely, in ombrotrophic peat domes, droughts may lead to reduced C accumulation or even net loss of peat. Increased surface wetness at our site in recent decades may reflect a shift towards a wetter climate in western Amazonia. Amazonian peatlands represent important carbon stores and habitats, and are important archives of past climatic and ecological information. They should form key foci for conservation efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the systematic review of parental perception of overweight status in children. Twenty-three studies satisfied inclusion criteria, representing 3864 overweight children from seven countries and five distinct standard definitions of overweight status. Parental recognition of their child's overweight status ranged from 6.2 percent to 73 percent.

Key Messages: General practitioners (GPs) can play a key role in tackling the current obesity epidemic, especially helping parents who may not realise that their child is overweight. In a ten-minute consultation, a GP should: explore a parent's ideas, concerns and expectations about food and exercise and build a picture of the home environmentexclude medical causes of overweight and plot height and weight on a growth chartoffer practical strategies and achievable goals, agree follow up and involve the multidisciplinary team for support., Why This Matters to Me: Childhood obesity is a global epidemic that has significant impact on the physical and psychological health and development of children, and often persists into adulthood where the health sequelae are well known. Parents are key players in putting healthy living advice into practice but our recent systematic review showed that parents are poor at recognising overweight in their own children. We believe GPs are key to providing health promotion for this group. However, to approach this sensitive subject requires one to have confidence and skills at one's fingertips and we hope this guide can provide these.