Many inhabited Greek/Mediterranean islands are unsustainable without mainland support due to lack of access to clean water and energy. This case study establishes the feasibility of sustainable green energy solutions for these settlements.
Background: Gender differences in life expectancy and societal roles have implications for a country's capacity to support its older population. Specifically, the longevity risk associated with longer life expectancy of women, with greater risk of morbidity entails different needs between genders in older age.
Background: Alcohol use is causally linked to multiple cancers. We present global, regional, and national estimates of alcohol-attributable cancer burden in 2020 to inform alcohol policy and cancer control across different settings globally.
Parental education and inequalities in child mortality: a global systematic review and meta-analysis
Background: The educational attainment of parents, particularly mothers, has been associated with lower levels of child mortality, yet there is no consensus on the magnitude of this relationship globally. We aimed to estimate the total reductions in under-5 mortality that are associated with increased maternal and paternal education, during distinct age intervals.
Sporadic late-onset Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most frequent cause of dementia associated with aging. Due to the progressive aging of the population, AD is becoming a healthcare burden of unprecedented proportions. Twenty years ago, it was reported that some indole molecules produced by the gut microbiota possess essential biological activities, including neuroprotection and antioxidant properties. Since then, research has cemented additional characteristics of these substances, including anti-inflammatory, immunoregulatory, and amyloid anti-aggregation features.
This paper discusses the importance of incorporating online home delivery services (OHDS) into the concept of accessibility and marginalization. The authors propose a method to quantify access to OHDS and assess levels of inequalities in access to OHDS using data from OHDS providers in the pharmaceutical and food sectors, as well as from transport operators delivering parcels. The Västra Götaland Region in the West coast of Sweden is used as a case study. The results show significant inequalities in access to OHDS.
The interest in eating insects as food is increasing, not least for sustainability reasons. However, the acceptance among consumers remains low. The aim of this review was to identify the key factors influencing consumer perception and acceptability of insect-based foods described in recent literature. Even though sustainability factors are important, they are seldom the main reasons influencing insect consumption. Instead, a complexity of emotional factors, such as disgust and neophobia, as well as familiar tastes, textures and contexts, were found to have a major influence.
The energy, exergy and economic analysis of indirect type solar dryer (ITSD) was performed while drying green chilli under forced and natural convection. Fans powered by PV panels were used for forced convection setup. The collector and drying efficiencies of the forced convection dryer were found to be 63.3% and 10.4% and the same was 53.84% and 8.90% in natural convection ITSD, respectively. The specific moisture extraction rate (SMER) of green chilli in ITSD was found to be 0.6526 and 0.5603 kg/kW-h under forced and natural convection, respectively.
The direct conversion of methane to methanol is very promising to achieve a decarbonized future but remains a great challenge. The electrochemical activation and partial oxidation of methane to methanol are highly attractive to enable the direct conversion in a sustainable and decentralized way. In this review, we present an overview of the main strategies that have allowed to gain mechanistic insight into the electrochemical activation of methane.
Facultative polyandry protects females from compromised male fertility caused by heatwave conditions
Animal Behaviour, Volume 178, August 2021
Why is polyandry such a common mating behaviour when it exposes females to a range of significant fitness costs? Here, we investigated whether polyandry protects females against reduced male fertility caused by thermal stress from heatwave conditions. Sperm production and function are vulnerable to heat, and heatwave conditions are forecast to increase as our climate warms, so we examined these effects on female reproduction and mating behaviour in the flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum, a promiscuous ectotherm model in which fertility is damaged by environmental warming.
