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In 2023, two decades after the restoration of the Victorian Geological Illustrations by the London Borough of Bromley—and the visit of the late HRH Prince Phillip to mark the completion of the restorations—it is clear that these internationally significant sculptures are in a worse state than ever before. Although interest in them remains high, and in spite of the best efforts of the Friends of the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs to protect and interpret them, it is plain that they are greatly at risk. In the year that marks the two‐hundredth anniversary of the description of Megalosaurus, depicted in all its magnificence in the park, it is a matter of urgency that we promote the significance of a site that really should be recognized for what it is—world heritage—and its current state of neglect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A study conducted by researchers from Teagasc and UCD found that calvings in spring-calving suckler cows were evenly distributed throughout the 24-hour day, with some variations within each hour. Factors such as cow breed type, calf sex, calf birth weight, and calving difficulty did not significantly affect the distribution of calving. The study also revealed that approximately one-third of calvings occurred during unsociable hours, which could pose safety risks for farmers. This information is part of a larger article on large animal veterinary care, which includes multiple-choice questions and their corresponding answers. [Extracted from the article]

The objective was to evaluate steer performance, meat nutritional value, land-use, food–feed competition and both economic and environmental sustainability within temperate pasture-based suckler weanling-to-beef systems with or without (forage-only) concentrates. Post-weaning, 8-month-old, late-maturing breed steers (333 kg) were assigned to one of three systems: (1) grass silage + 1.2 kg concentrate DM (148 days), followed by pasture (123 days) and finished on ad libitum concentrates (120 days) – slaughter age, 21 months (GRAIN); (2) as per (1) but pasture (196 days) and finished on grass silage ad libitum + 3.5 kg concentrate DM (124 days) – slaughter age, 24 months (SIL + GRAIN); and (3) grass silage-only (148 days), pasture (196 days), silage-only (140 days) and finished on pasture (97 days) – slaughter age, 28 months (FORAGE). The mean target carcass weight was 390 kg for each system. Data generated were used to parameterize a farm-level beef systems model. Concentrate DM intake was 1187, 606 and 0 kg/head for GRAIN, SIL + GRAIN and FORAGE, respectively. The forage-only (FORAGE) system offers several advantages, including improved farm profitability, enhanced meat fatty acid profile and only utilized inedible human feed. Consequently, associated greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per net human edible food produced were more favourable for FORAGE. However, compared to GRAIN, the FORAGE system had an older age at slaughter and associated increased pasture land-use and GHG emissions per animal, meat weight gain and essential amino acids gain. There are therefore inevitable trade-offs, as one beef system does not improve all sustainability and GHG emission metrics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) was employed to characterize coatings on surrogate fuel particles. Tri-structural isotropic (TRISO) particles are a proposed nuclear fuel alternative for high temperature reactors. These particles are constructed of a ZrO2 kernel (as a surrogate to uranium), surrounded by an inner pyrolytic carbon layer and are surrounded by an outer carbide layer (ZrC, presented here) to act as a barrier to fission products generated during nuclear reactions. These particles are embedded within a graphite compact and housed within the reactor core. Simply put, due to their robust nature, performing elemental analysis of these particles poses a challenge. Presented here, LIBS is explored as a method for characterizing elemental constituents of these particles, with the focus being on rapid elemental mapping and depth profiling. Different from traditional elemental analysis techniques (e.g., inductively coupled plasma – based methods), LIBS is advantageous because it can directly analyze the sample surface and can detect light elements such as C and O, making it a viable technique for the analysis of small, multilayered particles as spatial elemental information is warranted in the production of these particles. In the work presented here, LIBS was successfully used for discerning small layers (30–50 μm), detecting the location of carbon and oxygen layers, providing fast 2-D mapping (<5 min per particle) and rapid depth profiling (10 s per particle). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surrogate tristructural‐isotropic (TRISO)‐coated fuel particles were oxidized in 0.2 kPa O2 at 1200–1600°C to examine the behavior of the SiC layer and understand the mechanisms. The thickness and microstructure of the resultant SiO2 layers were analyzed using scanning electron microscopy, focused ion beam, and transmission electron microscopy. The majority of the surface comprised smooth, amorphous SiO2 with a constant thickness indicative of passive oxidation. The apparent activation energy for oxide growth was 188 ± 8 kJ/mol and consistent across all temperatures in 0.2 kPa O2. The relationship between activation energy and oxidation mechanism is discussed. Raised nodules of porous, crystalline SiO2 were dispersed across the surface, suggesting that active oxidation and redeposition occurred in those locations. These nodules were correlated with clusters of nanocrystalline SiC grains, which may facilitate active oxidation. These findings suggest that microstructural inhomogeneities such as irregular grain size influence the oxidation response of the SiC layer of TRISO particles and may influence their accident tolerance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of vegetation in the relationship between microhabitat and ship rat (Rattus rattus) distribution remains poorly understood. We used three years of trapping data (2017-2020) to calculate capture rates for 97 traps in the Makarora Valley and Haast Pass areas of Mt Aspiring National Park and determined aspects of the vegetation surrounding traps that influenced capture rates. The presence of fruiting understory plants--roundleaved coprosma (Coprosma rotundifolia), horopito (Pseudowintera colorata), and wineberry (Aristotelia serrata)--had weakly significant and positive associations with rat captures, whereas increasing density of large (> 200 mm DBH) mountain beech (Fuscospora cliffortioides) trees had a negative association, which was highly significant. Future research should incorporate methodology that links seasonal food abundances to capture rates and explores the influence of edge effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]