he lymphatic system plays an important role in human circulatory and immune homeostasis. Peripheral lymph nodes (LNs) are regional hubs that receive interstitial fluid as well as circulating blood. They contain large numbers of immune cells and the complex internal architecture of LNs constitutes an interface between the cellular and molecular constituents of lymph and blood. Cellular debris is filtered and primary immune responses can be generated in LNs to pathogens (1). LN blood vessels are highly specialized for facilitating T-cell entry to the node (2). The spatial distribution of surface area for exchange of fluid with blood vessels in LNs determines the amount of local fluid movement, and it is therefore important to quantify the three-dimensional distribution of LN blood vessels. In patients with cancer, tumor cells can also traffic through lymphatic channels to regional LNs (3). Recent studies have demonstrated that metastatic cells migrate toward and into LN blood vessels (4,5). Malignant processes are associated with both angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis (6). LNs may even act as a permissive niche to support the proliferation of metastatic cells and promote movement to distant sites (7). The accurate identification and quantification of metastatic LNs remains essential for prognosis and treatment planning (8).
The growing importance of subsurface carbon storage for tackling anthropogenic carbon emissions requires new ideas to improve the rate and cost of carbon capture and storage (CCS) project development and implementation. We assess sandstones from the UK Geoenergy Observatories (UKGEOS) site in Glasgow, UK and the Wilmslow Sandstone Formation (WSF) in Cumbria, UK at the pore scale to indicate suitability for further assessment as CCS reservoirs. We measure porosity, permeability and other pore geometry characteristics using digital rock physics techniques on micro computed tomographic images of core material from each site. We find the Glasgow material to be unsuitable for CCS due to very little porosity—up to 1.65%—whereas the WSF material showed connected porosity up to 26.3% and permeabilities up to 6040 mD. Our results support the presence of a percolation threshold at 10% total porosity, introducing near full connectivity. We find total porosity varies with permeability with an exponent of 3.19. This provides reason to assume near full connectivity in sedimentary samples showing porosities above this threshold without the need for expensive and time consuming analyses.Supplementary material: Information about the boreholes sampled in this study, additional well logs of both boreholes and a summary of the supporting data plotted throughout this article from literature is available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.5260074.Thematic collection: This article is part of the Geoscience for CO2 storage collection available at: https://www.lyellcollection.org/cc/geoscience-for-co2-storage
Direct links between carbonaceous chondrites and their parent bodies in the solar system are rare. The Winchcombe meteorite is the most accurately recorded carbonaceous chondrite fall. Its pre-atmospheric orbit and cosmic-ray exposure age confirm that it arrived on Earth shortly after ejection from a primitive asteroid. Recovered only hours after falling, the composition of the Winchcombe meteorite is largely unmodified by the terrestrial environment. It contains abundant hydrated silicates formed during fluid-rock reactions, and carbon- and nitrogen-bearing organic matter including soluble protein amino acids. The near-pristine hydrogen isotopic composition of the Winchcombe meteorite is comparable to the terrestrial hydrosphere, providing further evidence that volatile-rich carbonaceous asteroids played an important role in the origin of Earth’s water.
The shapes of vertebrate teeth are often used as hallmarks of diet. Here, however, we demonstrate evidence of frequent piscivory by cartilaginous fishes with pebble-like teeth that are typically associated with durophagy, the eating of hard-shelled prey. High-resolution micro-computed tomography observation of a jaw specimen from one batoid species and visual investigation of those of two additional species reveal large numbers of embedded stingray spines, arguing that stingray predation of a scale rivalling that of the largest carnivorous sharks may not be uncommon for large, predatory batoids with rounded, non-cutting dentition. Our observations demonstrate that tooth morphology is not always a reliable indicator of diet and that stingray spines are not as potent a deterrent to predation as normally believed. In addition, we show that several spines in close contact with the jaw skeleton of a wedgefish (Rhynchobatus) have become encased in a disorganized mineralized tissue with a distinctive ultrastructure, the first natural and unequivocal evidence of a callus-building response in the tessellated cartilage unique to elasmobranch skeletons. Our findings reveal sampling and analysis biases in vertebrate ecology, especially with regard to the role of large, predatory species, while also illustrating that large body size may provide an escape from anatomical constraints on diet (e.g. gape size, specialist dentition). Our observations inform our concepts of skeletal biology and evolution in showing that tessellated cartilage—an ancient alternative to bone—is incapable of foreign tissue resorption or of restoring damaged skeletal tissue to its original state, and attest to the value of museum and skeletal specimens as records of important aspects of animal life history.
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