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Attempts at changing individual car use behavior towards increased use of public transport have so far largely failed. This paper will argue that the continued rise in individual car use needs to be understood as part of an overall trend towards protecting oneself instead of protecting the environment, i.e. an individualized sensory response to an omnipresent collective threat. The car industry serves this trend perfectly with features that turn cars into "cozy" cocoons that protect passengers from the dangers of the outside world. Although the Covid-19 pandemic has fostered this trend, it has been inherent in the resistant nature of cars for decades. Thus, today cars are increasingly used for their sensory aspects related to safety and protection from an infectious, dirty, and violent outside world. This trend is supported by highly individualized cushioning and comfort factors that make cars "special places." Any strategies for promoting alternative forms of transport thus need to consider these sensory developments when creating incentives for people to travel by train, bus, etc. instead of driving cars. The paper ends with a few speculations on how public transport could be made more attractive given the current role of sensory perception in car driving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary governance heavily relies on scientific knowledge production, be it in regulating chemicals, addressing climate change, monitoring pollution, or public health surveillance. Conversely, non-knowledge as the absence of knowledge or information (rather than falsehood) in policymaking and regulation, has received little attention in political discourse and research on governance in knowledge societies (Innerarity, [23]). Yet non-knowledge should not merely be understood 'as unawareness or as the mere absence of knowledge, but rather as a specific kind of knowledge about what is not known' (Gross, [19], p. 388) - whether or not actors are aware of this. For coming to grips with knowledge and non-knowledge one can analytically divide active non-knowledge from passive non-knowledge. [Extracted from the article]

The article explores the environmental surprises since 1970 and how nonknowledge can serve as a strategic resource. It looks at the 1996 essay of Robert W. Kates and William Clark in which nonknowledge is seen as a strategic element to amplify interest, or to foster research questions over scientific uncertainties via unexpected events. It also discusses the different reactions to suprising events and the ways of anticipating and responding to surprises.

Aberrant expression of noncoding RNAs plays a critical role during tumorigenesis. To uncover novel functions of long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) in lung adenocarcinoma, we used a microarray-based screen identifying LINC00673 with elevated expression in matched tumor versus normal tissue. We report that loss of LINC00673 is sufficient to trigger cellular senescence, a tumor suppressive mechanism associated with permanent cell cycle arrest, both in lung cancer and normal cells in a p53-dependent manner. LINC00673-depleted cells fail to efficiently transit from G1- to S-phase. Using a quantitative proteomics approach, we confirm the modulation of senescence-associated genes as a result of LINC00673 knockdown. In addition, we uncover that depletion of p53 in normal and tumor cells is sufficient to overcome LINC00673-mediated cell cycle arrest and cellular senescence. Furthermore, we report that overexpression of LINC00673 reduces p53 translation and contributes to the bypass of Ras-induced senescence. In summary, our findings highlight LINC00673 as a crucial regulator of proliferation and cellular senescence in lung cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article establishes some parallels in attitude and analogies in decision-making between the fictional underground explorations depicted in Jules Verne's novelJourney to the Center of the Earth(1864) and contemporary engineering efforts to tap geothermal energy by drilling through the Earth's crust. It is argued that reconstructing these parallels can be a helpful way of uncovering previously little discussed assumptions and perhaps even deeply ingrained attitudes derived from specific perceptions of the geological underground. In the course of doing so, topics analyzed include the integration of old and new technologies, connections between responsibility and irrationality, failure as a normal stepping stone, or how unavoidable unknowns are being creatively incorporated into decision-making and practical strategies for probing into unfathomed depths. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The metastasis-associated lung adenocarcinoma transcript 1, MALAT1, is a long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) that has been discovered as a marker for lung cancer metastasis. It is highly abundant, its expression is strongly regulated in many tumor entities including lung adenocarcinoma and hepatocellular carcinoma as well as physiological processes, and it is associated with many RNA binding proteins and highly conserved throughout evolution. The nuclear transcript MALAT-1 has been functionally associated with gene regulation and alternative splicing and its regulation has been shown to impact proliferation, apoptosis, migration and invasion. Here, we have developed a human and a mouse knockout system to study the loss-of-function phenotypes of this important ncRNA. In human tumor cells, MALAT1 expression was abrogated using Zinc Finger Nucleases. Unexpectedly, the quantitative loss of MALAT1 did neither affect proliferation nor cell cycle progression nor nuclear architecture in human lung or liver cancer cells. Moreover, genetic loss of Malat1 in a knockout mouse model did not give rise to any obvious phenotype or histological abnormalities in Malat1-null compared with wild-type animals. Thus, loss of the abundant nuclear long ncRNA MALAT1 is compatible with cell viability and normal development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem of contamination of soil and groundwater has only been discussed widely in industrialized countries since the 1970s. Since the 1980s, when the debate on sustainable development began to be taken up in urban and regional planning, soil was increasingly seen as a scarce and non-renewable resource. Consequently, the goal of brownfield redevelopment became an urgent issue in policy circles. Because revitalization of contaminated brownfield areas is characterized by many uncertainties and complex decision-making processes, there is a growing need for generic decision-support systems. In this paper we discuss the development of a systematic approach aimed at assessing different land-use scenarios for a contaminated site in terms of their sustainability value as part of a computer-based module. The overall management system, of which sustainability indicator development discussed in this paper is but one part, supports users in developing a case-specific set of criteria for sustainable development. In this paper, we present and critically discuss this new sustainability assessment module. We describe the different steps of the indicator development process and discuss areas that need to be improved in order to derive answers that reach beyond the field of contaminated site management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social scientists have traditionally attempted to avoid extending strategies for acquiring experimental knowledge to the sphere of the social. Bruno Latour, however, has introduced a notion of the collective experiment, an experiment conducted by and with us all. In this short paper I seek to explore, by way of elucidating the talk of collective experiments, that Latour's notion has long since existed in the theory and practice of ecological design and restoration. Practitioners in ecological restoration projects find themselves in a situation of double contingency, since neither do they know how nature will respond to their intervention nor is their interpretation of these responses already certain. Experimental practice in society then becomes the proceduralization of this contingency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By comparing the US environmental justice movement with recent European developments, this paper suggests an environmental justice framework which is based on the idea of environmental justice as a heterogeneous process rather than an analytical or normative category. Using major debates on environmental justice particularly in the UK and Germany as a touchstone, eight dimensions of environmental justice are carved out and integrated into a processual model. It is discussed how environmental justice as a process may become robust enough to integrate and react to changing natural and social conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ecological restoration aims to initiate natural processes and to facilitate ecosystem recovery. It is also seen as an opportunity for humans to enter into an active relationship with ecosystems. Many contemporary restoration projects not only engage laypersons, but also include the expectation that nature will respond to human efforts in surprising and unpredictable ways. Some practitioners claim that the deliberate inclusion of 'unwanted' elements, such as dangerous species, needs to be understood as the pivotal point of what distinguishes ecological restoration from other forms of ecosystem management. Using the unexpected, and sometimes unwelcome, return of wolves to eastern Germany as a touchstone, some practical implications of ecological restoration's embrace of the unpredictable will be discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]