Origin of Life Probiotic Chemistry Employing New Ideas. 2022-07-31. Jorma Jyrkkanen

Abstract How and where did life on Earth originate? To date, various environments have been proposed as plausible sites for the origin of life. However, discussions have focused on a limited stage of chemical evolution, or emergence of a specific chemical function of proto-biological systems. It remains unclear what geochemical situations could drive all the stages of chemical evolution, ranging from condensation of simple inorganic compounds to the emergence of self-sustaining systems that were evolvable into modern biological ones. In this review, we summarize reported experimental and theoretical findings for prebiotic chemistry relevant to this topic, including availability of biologically essential elements (N and P) on the Hadean Earth, abiotic synthesis of life's building blocks (amino acids, peptides, ribose, nucleobases, fatty acids, nucleotides, and oligonucleotides), their polymerizations to bio-macromolecules (peptides and oligonucleotides), and emergence of biological functions of replication and compartmentalization. It is indicated from the overviews that completion of the chemical evolution requires at least eight reaction conditions of (1) reductive gas phase, (2) alkaline pH, (3) freezing temperature, (4) fresh water, (5) dry/dry-wet cycle, (6) coupling with high energy reactions, (7) heating-cooling cycle in water, and (8) extraterrestrial input of life's building blocks and reactive nutrients. The necessity of these mutually exclusive conditions clearly indicates that life's origin did not occur at a single setting; rather, it required highly diverse and dynamic environments that were connected with each other to allow intra-transportation of reaction products and reactants through fluid circulation. Future experimental research that mimics the conditions of the proposed model are expected to provide further constraints on the processes and mechanisms for the origin of life. This line of work posits the criticality of cyanide, alpha keto acids, ammonia and carbon dioxide.

Research Paper Origins of building blocks of life: A review Author links open overlay panelNorioKitadai ShigenoriMaruyama Prior thinking was insprired by the Urey Miller Experiments utilizing methane, hydrogen, water vapour and carbon dioxide and aldehydes.

My Profile and Thoughts ~1990 Jorma Jyrkkanen

Jorma Jyrkkanen, BSc, PDP . Author, Composer, Researcher

I am a lifelong nature lover and environmental researcher who has found the meaning of life! I dedicate this site to the Prevention of Cancer and Preservation of Planet Earth's Creatures and to the Seekers of Truth and Sustainable Ecological Equilibrium ie. Conservation Biology and Ecology and Total Global Health. What I have created here in essence is a free international environmental university online for all to share and use. If it were an accredited establishment, I would call it the NeoDarwinian International Institute of Advanced Environmental and Philosophical Studies. This was my file in GEOCITIES.COM run by and subsequently deleted by Yahoo. To become Environmental Scientists, I suggest students of nature study my archives one topic at a time, breaking into topic groups, and each group Team-Presents a lecture at a weekly Seminar of their investigations. When you have finished the list, you will be Scientists and you may also be a tad cynical. As an Eco Sleuth, I can get pretty excited when I get onto the trail of a hot one. After discussions with Dr. David Monroe, USA Toxicologist, I analysed and discovered 350 ppm of carcinogenic 1,4-dioxane a few years back, in Vision herbicide, after the Feds and Monsanto said it was safe! I also found that the surfactant was polyoxyethyleneamine (POEA), a probable human carcinogen. These smoking pistols with Monsanto fingerprints all over them has resulted in a few changes in 'Inert' management and increased toxin contaminant disclosure in the US but not in Canada. The Feds subsequently and reluctantly admitted that they had corroboration on the dioxane contamination. My third most important observation, 'Given Infinite Time and Space and Random Turns, the most Improbable Event Becomes Certitude'(JJ, 1974). Translated, this implies that quantum mechanics rules the universe and serendipity is our friend besides being the occassional pain in the butt. My hobbies are fishing, camping, canoing, hiking, climbing, xc and downhill skiing, composing medieval Viking dances on classical guitar, bird watching and especially hawks and owls. What is the temperature and cloud cover over your part of the world? Click 'Hawk Eye' link! For a great example of salmon habitat enhancement involving kids and fish and education click 'Salmon Habitat'. One of my goals is to expand my conservation studies and to continue this work for many years for nature. These investigations could be used as material in a university course in environmental toxicology. There are certainly many opportunities for a digression into researching numerous topics suggested by my review materials themselves. PHd's lurk there. Another hobby of mine is making huge predictions, for example I predict that human caused global warming will cause post-glacial rebound and increased plate tectonic movements due to mass shifts over the plates with resulting increases in earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanism, possibly the first time an organism has ever done so on such a scale. If it leads to eruption of the Yellowstone volcano, it may also be our self induced undoing as a species. I believe I have discovered why Black bears are black. For answer, contact me. I have a gift from my 18 years in Northwestern BC and my years with the F&W Branch. I know where every good steelhead fishing hole in the country is and what gear to use to catch em. Same for chinook. I may write it up into a book one day. I believe that I have also discovered the main causes of cancer through my studies. The P's that cause cancer. Pollution, Profit and Prevention-lack thereof. Look no further than smoking to see how true this is. I believe that cancers are for the most part preventable if the political will were to exist to eliminate carcinogens, mutagens, endocrine disruptors, immune system damaging chemicals and cancer promoters. The Stockholm Accord is a step in the right direction but it is far too narrow in scope. The CNA Nurses resolution is a strong step in the right direction but with a limited voice. The Earth Charter goes a long way towards environmental protection. But collectively, we can wield the biggest club with our pocketbook in the marketplace and in the stock exchange. For example, buy chlorine free food packaging. The individual can take preventative steps by life-style choices like organic foods, anti-cancer diets, avoiding carcinogen exposure and living in healthy environments though these are getting hard to find. The Cancer Orgs completely misallocate the monies donated to them. They should give ten percent to molecular geneticists and the rest to organizations dedicated to prevention. We could eliminate probably 60% of all cancers in short order by this more realistic focus on the cause instead of the wasteful quest for the magic bullet which just feeds the cancer industry. There are of course cancers that are contagious like those obtained via specific Herpes strains, Epstein-Barr virus, hepatitis virus, HIV, SV40, JC polyomaviruses, certain papillomas or other possible viruses like CMV which has been associated with colon and glioma cancers and these are possibly preventable by hygienic prophylaxis or possibly development of immunization anitsera or through understanding and controlling the mechanisms of contagion. Good news November 18th, 2002..My prediction has come true. A vaccine has been developed for HPV 16 which is completely effective against cervical cancer in preliminary trials. This was confirmed again in a large study done in 2005. Immunization can prevent contagious cancers. The common stomach ulcers bacteria has been implicated as a cause of gastric cancer and parasitic flukes, both and liver have been nailed as agents that cause cancer. Aspergillis mould fungi are also cancer causing. Breast cancer is mostly explainable by persistent organic pesticides and vinyl chloride and related pollutants that harm the genes through the endocrine system. Just like hormone therapy increases breast cancer incidence, so too do these chemicals that disrupt the endocrine systems. To prevent breast cancer, once again, fight pollution. For more info and prevention, check out my references in 'Archives'. I believe that there are two major flaws in human civilization. In my personal opinion, which I express without malice, our philosophical underpinnings are irrational and the other is that our socio-economic policy founded on population growth and economic growth is ultimately unsustainable by the environment. We have had insufficient information to understand reality and insufficient distribution of intelligence to make sense of it regardless during the early course of our evolution and sadly this will continue for a long time. These imaginary solutions evolved quite naturally not only into the marvellous cultural diversity which we should celebrate, but also into the ethnic and religious arrogances we have seen warring amongst each other which now threaten global security and the environment. Security concerns arising from religion-based differences for example, have misappropriated vast vital financial and infrastructure resources which should go towards environmental repair and protection. Half of all wars are fought over religion which puts a huge burden of blame for global suffering on its practioners. It is valid to ask if a way of being which kills over 50 million people is a good thing. Science today is still fighting a rear-guard action for Darwin and modern cosmic and biological evolution theory against the primitive notion that the universe was created by magic because it has become commonly accepted that one can believe anything whether it is the truth or not, a perhaps highly dangerous and potentially suicidal notion. There can be only one truth in reality in one place and at one time. All the others must therefore be something else. Antagonistic groups have put themselves in boxes that differ from each other in only minute details in their thoughts yet they kill people in other boxes because of these minute differences. These groups have yet to open Darwin's book and smell the aroma of scientific evolutionary coffee which would enable them to progress to a whole new reality unimaginable to our ignorant fore-bearers and unenlightened contemporaries. The AIDS pandemic, the drought and massive starvation in Africa and elsewhere, CJD, CWD, superbugs, pest epidemics, genocide, fisheries collapses, wars against Islamic ers, flood and fires, are reminders that Headmaster Darwin is ringing his bell on the steps of his school, calling the evolution non-believers to class to read his book and to understand our place. They are Nature, the driver of the horses of evolution, the mother of life, the creator of life, the sustainor of life, pulling the reins back, saying to humanity, 'whoa boy, slow down and pull your goats back from my overgrazed land and stop your rampant carbon combustion and stop breeding like rabbits and wake up to the undeniable truth of evolution'. They are a natural result of ignoring nature, the health of ecosystems, overpopulation and limiting factors and of human society hitting the wall of continued unmitigated growth. They are the result of globalization of probably the most dangerous notion that ever existed, that prosperity requires population growth and that unrestrained growth of humanity is the best goal and that it can be fudged into sustainability. How dare we pack more people in while we squander so much of the existing humanity we have already produced while destroying ecosystems. Sustainability is notwithstanding a wonderful aspiration and part of any harmonizing concept but it alone will not stop habitat destruction and alienation and extinction because selfishness and dire necessity will prevent its full implementation. The infidels on this planet are not Professor Hashem Aghajari or Rushdi or the Jews or Atheists or Pagans or myself, but all those who destroy nature and deny evolution. This leads me to my first and most important observation. It was we humans who created all the gods, not the other way round. Evolution, a physical and organic process, is the creator. Humanity does not have dominion over nature but is rather a part of it and totally dependent upon it. You see my friends, nature operating through evolution, is both our planets life Creator and the Creation and to see her working we need just turn around and listen to her progeny singing in the springtime or blowing in the wind or spinning webs in the shadows or laughing in the playground. The time has come to put our inherited religious ideas into a folder called traditional mythologies and undergo collective cultural evolution for we now know that they were incorrect and move on to the verifiable pure truths of scientific evolution and a cosmologically scientifically consistent philosophy. Our socio-economic policy is rooted in the ancient primate hoarding instinct, our primal need for a peck-order and territorial tribalism, primitive hard-wired primate instincts we cannot escape but must try to control by rational over-sight. Clearly, our mischievous greedy, territorial, racist, promiscuous, warring little monkey genes still direct our cultural evolution and behaviour and may ultimately be our undoing. Don't believe me. Check the human genome project and chimp DNA hybridization research projects (ex. Wildman et al Genomics studied 73104 DNA bases and found 99.01% similarity between chimps and humans) and keep an eye on nightly news covering human behaviour! It appears from our behaviour and our genetic similarities that we are in fact still monkeys. More profoundly, genetic researchers studying phylogeny, have found that our genes still share 500 genes in common with the earliest forms of life on earth, the Archaea, 5000 genes in common with fish, and identical eye genes in common with ocean flatworms and mice, providing support for the idea that we are related to all living things. My second best prediction back in the early 1970's was that humanity was poised for an epidemic by a delayed lethal disease pathogen and AIDS came along. My follow-up prediction is that there is a still worse epidemic of an even more aggressive pathogen brewing. I also predict on this day, 7 May 2006, that MS is caused by Dioxin. It causes degenerative disease in every other species, why not human. The collapse of so many fisheries worldwide are the planet's miners' canaries going silent? Will we heed their message? Clearly we need to move to that new paradigm and I suggest rather than 'Sustainable Development', we pursue 'Ecological Harmonization'. My first most important observation is that evolution is the creator, both noun and verb; physical inorganic evolution created the universe and organic biological evolution created life and we humans created the gods in our imagination. I am so convinced of my observations that they amount to a belief which is open to contrary evidence. It is this: My Creed: I believe that inorganic evolution creates and destroys universes; organic evolution creates life and all species. Energy is eternal and links everything everywhere. We are monkies made by evolution struggling in vain against our genetic inheritance to be something else. Evolution is the creator ergo there is no God.

Are We Already in the Sixth Mass Extinction. Reading on the Subject. 2022-07-27. Jorma Jyrkkanen

Has the Earth’s Sixth Mass Extinction Already Arrived? Nature March 2011Nature 471(7336):51-7 Project: Quaternary history of vertebrate diversity Abstract and Figures Palaeontologists characterize mass extinctions as times when the Earth loses more than three-quarters of its species in a geologically short interval, as has happened only five times in the past 540 million years or so. Biologists now suggest that a sixth mass extinction may be under way, given the known species losses over the past few centuries and millennia. Here we review how differences between fossil and modern data and the addition of recently available palaeontological information influence our understanding of the current extinction crisis. Our results confirm that current extinction rates are higher than would be expected from the fossil record, highlighting the need for effective conservation measures. More rigorously formulating and testing synergy hypotheses may be especially important in assessing sixth mass extinction potential, because once again the global stage is set for unusual interactions. Existing ecosystems are the legacy of a biotic turnover initiated by the onset of glacial–interglacial cycles that began ,2.6 million years ago, and evolved primarily in the absence of Homo sapiens. Today, rapidly changing atmospheric conditions and warming above typical interglacial temperatures as CO2 levels continue to rise, habitat fragmentation, pol- lution, overfishing and overhunting, invasive species and pathogens (like chytrid fungus), and expanding human biomass 6,7,18,20 are all more extreme ecological stressors than most living species have previously experienced. Without concerted mitigation efforts, such stressors will accelerate in the future and thus intensify extinction 7,20 , especially given the feedbacks between individual stressors 56 . DOI:10.1038/nature09678 SourcePubMed MY THOUGHTS. OUR USE OF PLANETARY RESOURCES LEAVES LITTLE ROOM FOR OTHER SPECIES. ADDITIONALLY WE ARE DEGRADING LAND, AIR AND WATER AT AN ENORMOUS RATE SO THAT AS NATURAL HABITAT IT IS DECREASING IN QUALITY AND QUANTITY SO FAST THAT THERE IS LITTLE REMAINING ROOM FOR OTHER SPECIES. HABITAT LOSS AND DEGRADATION ARE KEY TO SURVIVAL AND THE TREND IS SO OBVIOUS AND WIDESPREAD THAT IT IS INCONCEIVABLE THAT WE ARE NOT IN ANOTHER MASS EXTINCTION EVENT. CLIMATE CHANGE WILL PUT INCREDIBLE PRESSURE ON MAMMALIANS AND DISEASES HAVE SHRUNK AMPHIBIANS. INSECTIVOROUS AVES, VULTURES ARE ALSO IN TROUBLE, LARGE MAMMALS AND ANADROMOUS FISH AND INSECTS ARE ALL SHOWING SIGNS OF POPULATION STRESS. IN THE MARINE ENVIRONMENT, PHYTOPLANKTON, AQUATIC VEGETATION LIKE EEL GRASSES, KELP FORESTS, CORAL REEFS, LARGE PREDATORY FISH ARE ALL IN TROUBLE. I THINK THERE IS SUFFICIENT EVIDENCE TO CONCLUDE THAT WE ARE IN A SIXTH MASS EXTINCTION CAUSED BY HUMANS.

CONCLUSION: WE ARE IN THE SIXTH MASS EXTINCTION AND WE ARE THE CAUSE. OUR FAILURE TO LIVE IN HARMONY WITH THE GREAT ECOSYSTEMS AND WITH DIVERSE BIOTA ARE THE CAUSE.

Climate Change. The Science Reviewed. Can Anthropogenic Global Warming be Stopped? Sadly no. Best available answer. 2022-07-22. Jorma Jyrkkanen

Climate Change. The Science Reviewed. Can Anthropogenic Global Warming be Stopped? Jorma Jyrkkanen,
For copy of Full Document Contact 250-859-5330, jjyrkkanen76@outlook.com

We are adding 215,000 people to the human population every day and all the energy they will emit.

If we wanted to freeze permafrost to stop the output pf CO2 and methane of its melting how much CO2 do we have to remove from the present 420 ppm to get it to over ride ocean heat warming and accomplish refreezing. Can it be done? The existential question. Yes or No? To be or not to Be.

Crop Failure at 45 C near at hand and spreading. More heating undesirable. We are losing 25,000 peple per day today from starvation and drought aggravated by wars and dislocation and are seeing temperatures exceeding 45 C in places we have never experienced in human history.

How are we doing so far with those meetings? Making any headway or are they just gab sessions?

Looks like exponential increase with no change in shape and no effect of any policy decision since Meetings first commence. D-

LOVE ME OR LOSE ME

Even if we cease/remove CO2 emissions there is committed warming tied up in the oceans. So we will, globally, continue to warm. Ruth But I don't know if it's possible to locally change the trajectory. Ruth Of course the Arctic is hard because it is warming so much faster than anywhere else, but there are things that can be done. Ruth Collaborators of mine have a paper in review right now looking at the transport of aerosols, especially black carbon, to the arctic. It has a lot of very important policy recommendations. Ruth Ruth Digby Changes like that could help. You sent Thanks Ruth Probably some interesting reading here: Ruth https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/special_issue1143.html ACP – Special issue – Arctic climate, air quality, and health impacts from short-lived climate forcers (SLCFs): contributions from the AMAP Expert Group (ACP/BG inter-journal SI) Ruth That's the group Ruth Ruth Digby But the paper I'm referring to is not available yet. From Ruth Digby, Climate Model PHd ADAPTATION IS THE NEXT STAGE OF OUR REPSONSE. THE SCIENCE PAINTS A GRIM PICTURE OF OUR FUTURE. Adaptation will require an enormous change in our economies, our relationship to manufacture and construction and materials extraction and use, and in particular to our expectations of what and how much we can expect from nature, and changes to our habits in many aspects. Most imporantly we will have to relearn to live with nature within the limits that it imposes in a shrinking survival space. The permafrost, methane and the stored heat in the oceans will be raising the temperature primarily in the northern regions and this will lead to change in human populations. The survival of sufficient agriculture to ensure our long term continuence is not assured under present growth patterns and attendant climate changes we are observing. Adaptation may offset some of the coming challenges but the 45 C limit on photosynthesis is a bug in the works going forward. The rapid urgent transition from fossil fuels is of course the best opportunity to minimize impacts and downsizing population thorugh family planning must also be a part of the solution. Protection of the big ecosystems must be paramount to ensure the life support system of Planet Earth. Capitalism itself must impose limits that comply with survival needs and shelving of costly deleterious wants and the very concept of growth. The Wealthy developed countries of the world that caused enormous harm by greenhouse gas emissions to the poorest must also help their victim countries to adapt through financial and other support proportional to the costs they added to their lives. I EXPECT THE EXTENT AND MAGNITUDE OF THE OCEAN HEAT FORCING TO BE DEPENDENT TO A CONSIDERABLE EXTENT ON THE DEGREE OF OUR ELIMINATION OF FOSSIL FUELS IN OUR ENERGY MIX BUT ONCE THE METHANE CLATHRATES KICK IN WE MIGHT LOSE ANY SIGNIFICANT IMPACT ON OUTCOMES. PAST TIME TO GET WITH THE PROGRAM

REFERENCES FOR MORE: PR_WGII_AR6_english.pdf /SPM_version_report_LR.pdf https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-working-group-ii/ Canadian Global Climate Models https://climate-modelling.canada.ca/climatemodelgraphics/cgcm4/tas_Amon_CanESM2_rcp85_1995_2090_ano_rob.shtml https://climate-modelling.canada.ca/climatemodelgraphics/cgcm4/tas_Amon_CanESM2_rcp85_1995_2090_ano_rob.shtml

Integrity of mitochondria and its role in sustaining the immune system may be compromised by antibiotics, pesticides and covid. 2022-07-06. Jorma Jyrkkanen

Abstract Mitochondria are key organelles involved in energy production, functioning as the metabolic hubs of cells. Recent findings emphasize the emerging role of the mitochondrion as a key intracellular signaling platform regulating innate immune and inflammatory responses. Several mitochondrial proteins and mitochondrial reactive oxygen species have emerged as central players orchestrating the innate immune responses to pathogens and damaging ligands. This review explores our current understanding of the roles played by mitochondria in regulation of innate immunity and inflammatory responses. Recent advances in our understanding of the relationship between autophagy, mitochondria, and inflammasome activation are also briefly discussed. A comprehensive understanding of mitochondrial role in toll-like receptor-mediated innate immune responses and NLRP3 inflammasome complex activation, will facilitate development of novel therapeutics to treat various infectious, inflammatory, and autoimmune disorders. (Jin HS, Suh HW, Kim SJ, Jo EK April 20 2017) Antibiotics can compromise the microbial community thereby compromising the immune system through that avenue. REVIEW Metabolites: messengers between the microbiota and the immune system The mammalian intestine harbors one of the largest mi- crobial densities on Earth, necessitating the implementa- tion of control mechanisms by which the host evaluates the state of microbial colonization and reacts to devia- tions from homeostasis. While microbial recognition by the innate immune system has been firmly established as an efficient means by which the host evaluates micro- bial presence, recent work has uncovered a central role for bacterial metabolites in the orchestration of the host im -mune response. In this review, we highlight examples of how microbiota-modulated metabolites control the devel- opment, differentiation, and activity of the immune sys- tem and classify them into functional categories that illustrate the spectrum of ways by which microbial me- tabolites influence host physiology. A comprehensive un- derstanding of how microbiota-derived metabolites shape the human immune system is critical for the rational de- sign of therapies for microbiota-driven diseases. (aayan Levy,1 Christoph A. Thaiss, 1 and Eran Elinav Immunology Department, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel). Short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) are bacterial fermentation products, which are chemically composed by a carboxylic acid moiety and a small hydrocarbon chain. Among them, acetic, propionic and butyric acids are the most studied, presenting, respectively, two, three and four carbons in their chemical structure. These metabolites are found in high concentrations in the intestinal tract, from where they are uptaken by intestinal epithelial cells (IECs). The SCFAs are partially used as a source of ATP by these cells. In addition, SCFA act as a link between the microbiota and the immune system by modulating different aspects of IECs and leukocytes development, survival and function through activation of G protein coupled receptors (FFAR2, FFAR3, GPR109a and Olfr78) and by modulation of the activity of enzymes and transcription factors including the histone acetyltransferase and deacetylase and the hypoxia-inducible factor. Considering that, it is not a surprise, the fact that these molecules and/or their targets are suggested to have an important role in the maintenance of intestinal homeostasis and that changes in components of this system are associated with pathological conditions including inflammatory bowel disease, obesity and others. Corrêa-Oliveira R, Fachi JL, Vieira A, Sato FT, Vinolo . SCFA's may be compromised by antibiotics and other substances impacting gut microbia. Ref: Corrêa-Oliveira R, Fachi JL, Vieira A, Sato FT, Vinolo Regulationofimmune cellfunctionby short-chain fatty acids. Clin Transl Immunology. 2016 Apr 22;5(4):e73. doi: 10.1038/cti.2016.17. PMID: 27195116; PMCID: PMC4855267. Jin HS, Suh HW, Kim SJ, Jo EK. Mitochondrial Control of Innate Immunity and Inflammation. Immune Netw. 2017 Apr;17(2):77-88. doi: 10.4110/in.2017.17.2.77. Epub 2017 Apr 20. PMID: 28458619; PMCID: PMC5407986. Lactate can help boost the immune system so if you get that burn and feel fatigue this is helpful apparently.

Permafrost Heating is Moving to Arctic Seafloor by Slow Moving Groundwater with Ramifications for Clathrate Mobilization. 2-22-07-02. Joorma Jyrkkanen

Arctic Study. Rapid changes to the Arctic seafloor noted as submerged permafrost thaws Using MBARI mapping technology, researchers have established a baseline for tracking future changes to the seafloor Date: March 14, 2022 Source: Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute Summary: A new study has documented how the thawing of permafrost submerged underwater at the edge of the Arctic Ocean is affecting the seafloor. A new study from MBARI researchers and their collaborators is the first to document how the thawing of permafrost, submerged underwater at the edge of the Arctic Ocean, is affecting the seafloor. The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on March 14, 2022. Numerous peer-reviewed studies show that thawing permafrost creates unstable land which negatively impacts important Arctic infrastructure, such as roads, train tracks, buildings, and airports. This infrastructure is expensive to repair, and the impacts and costs are expected to continue increasing. Using advanced underwater mapping technology, MBARI researchers and their collaborators revealed that dramatic changes are happening to the seafloor as a result of thawing permafrost. In some areas, deep sinkholes have formed, some larger than a city block of six-story buildings. In other areas, ice-filled hills called pingos have risen from the seafloor. "We know that big changes are happening across the Arctic landscape, but this is the first time we've been able to deploy technology to see that changes are happening offshore too," said Charlie Paull, a geologist at MBARI and one of the lead authors of the study. "This groundbreaking research has revealed how the thawing of submarine permafrost can be detected, and then monitored once baselines are established." While the degradation of terrestrial Arctic permafrost is attributed in part to increases in mean annual temperature from human-driven climate change, the changes the research team has documented on the seafloor associated with submarine permafrost derive from much older, slower climatic shifts related to our emergence from the last ice age. Similar changes appear to have been happening along the seaward edge of the former permafrost for thousands of years. "There isn't a lot of long-term data for the seafloor temperature in this region, but the data we do have aren't showing a warming trend. The changes to seafloor terrain are instead being driven by heat carried in slowly moving groundwater systems," explained Paull.