If you ever find yourself on Macquarie Island – a narrow, wind-lashed ridge halfway between Tasmania and Antarctica – the first thing you’ll notice is the wildlife. Elephant seals sprawl across dark beaches. King penguins march up mossy slopes. Albatrosses circle over vast, treeless uplands.

But look more closely and the island is changing. Slopes are becoming boggier. Iconic megaherbs such as Pleurophyllum and Stilbocarpa are retreating.

For years, scientists suspected the culprit was increasing rainfall. Our new research, published in Weather and Climate Dynamics, confirms this – and shows the story goes far beyond one remote UNESCO World Heritage site.

A major – but little observed – climate player

The Southern Ocean plays an enormous role in the global climate system.

It absorbs much of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gases and a large share of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activity.

Storms in the Southern Ocean also influence weather patterns across Australia, New Zealand and the globe.

Yet it is also one of the least observed places on Earth.

With almost no land masses, only a handful of weather stations, and ubiquitous cloud cover, satellites and simulations struggle to capture what is actually happening there.

That makes Macquarie Island’s climate record from the Bureau of Meteorology and the Australian Antarctic Division exceptionally valuable, providing one of the very few long-term “ground truth” records anywhere in the Southern Ocean.

These high-quality records of the observed daily rainfall and meteorology date back more than 75 years and are commonly used to validate satellite products and numerical simulations.

Rising rainfall

Earlier work has found rainfall at Macquarie Island had risen sharply over recent decades, and ecologists documented waterlogging that harms native vegetation.

But no one has explained how the island’s weather patterns are changing, or directly compared the field observations to our best reconstructions of past weather to assess Southern Ocean climate trends.

To fill this gap, we analysed 45 years (1979–2023) of daily rainfall observations and compared them to a widely used reconstruction of earlier weather, known as the ERA5 reanalysis.

We wanted to understand the meteorology behind the increase in rainfall – that is, whether it was caused by more storms or more intense rainfall during storms. To do this we placed each day in the dataset into one of five synoptic regimes based on pressure, humidity, winds and temperature.

These regimes included low pressure systems, cold-air outbreaks and warm-air advection (the warm air that moves poleward ahead of a cold front).

Storms are producing more rain

Our analysis showed that annual rainfall on Macquarie Island has increased 28% since 1979 – around 260 millimetres per year.

The ERA5 reanalysis, in contrast, shows only an 8% increase — missing most of this change.

The storm track’s gradual move toward Antarctica is well established, and our results show how this larger change is shaping Macquarie Island’s weather today.

Crucially, we found that these changes are not causing the increase in rainfall, as one wet regime (warm air advection) was largely replacing another (low pressure).

Instead, storms now produce more rain when they occur.

Why does this matter beyond one island?

If the rainfall intensification we see at Macquarie Island reflects conditions across the Southern Ocean storm belt – as multiple lines of evidence indicate — the consequences are profound.

A wetter storm track means more fresh water entering the upper ocean. This strengthens the different layers in the oceans and reduces the amount of mixing that occurs. In turn, this alters the strength of ocean currents.

Our estimate suggests that in 2023 this additional precipitation equates to roughly 2,300 gigatonnes of additional freshwater per year across the high-latitude Southern Ocean – an order of magnitude greater than recent Antarctic meltwater contributions. And this difference continues to grow.

More rainfall will also affect the salinity of water on the ocean’s surface, which influences the movement of nutrients and carbon. As a result, this could change the productivity and chemistry of the Southern Ocean – one of the world’s most important carbon sinks – in still-uncertain ways.

This increase in rainfall requires a matching increase in evaporation, which cools the ocean, just like our bodies cool when our sweat evaporates. Over the cloudy Southern Ocean, this evaporation is the primary means of cooling the ocean.

Our analysis indicates the Southern Ocean may be cooling itself by 10–15% more than it did in 1979 – simply through the energy cost of evaporation that fuels the extra rainfall. This evaporation is spread over the broader Southern Ocean.

In effect, the Southern Ocean may be “sweating” more in response to climate change.

The next challenge

Macquarie Island is just one tiny speck of land in Earth’s stormiest ocean.

But its long-term rainfall record suggests the Southern Ocean – the engine room of global heat and carbon uptake – is changing faster and more dramatically than we thought.

The next challenge is to determine how far this signal extends across the storm track, and what it means for the climate system we all depend on.

The authors would like the acknowledge Andrew Prata, Yi Huang, Ariaan Purish and Peter May for their contribution to the research and this article.

Steven Siems, Professor in Cloud Microphysics, Monash University and Zhaoyang Kong, PhD Candidate, School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment, Monash University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Kimchi has been enjoyed for centuries in Korea. But the spicy fermented cabbage dish has recently gained popularity in other parts of the world not only because of its delicious taste, but because of its potential to positively influence the many thousands of important microbes living in our gut as well as our overall health.

A recent study suggests that kimchi may also help support the immune system.

The study looked at 13 overweight adults over a 12-week period. Participants were randomly assigned to three groups. One group received a placebo, while the other two groups received two different types of kimchi powder (kimchi that had been freeze dried and put into a capsule).

The first type of kimchi powder was naturally fermented using microbes already in the environment. The second type was fermented with a chosen bacterial culture instead of relying on natural microbes. The amount of kimchi powder participants were given daily was roughly equivalent to eating 30 grams of fresh kimchi.

Blood samples were taken before and after the study and analysed using a technique that shows what each immune cell is doing instead of giving an overall average. This gives a detailed view of how the immune system responded.

The study found that kimchi affected the immune system in a targeted way. It increased the activity of antigen-presenting cells (APCs). These are immune cells that ingest pathogens, process them and show pieces of those pathogens on their surface so the body’s helper T cells (which coordinate overall immune response) know to mount a response against those specific pathogens.

Kimchi also increased the activity of certain genes that act like switches, helping these immune cells send clearer signals to T cells.

There were also genetic changes in helper T cells that made them react more quickly to anything that triggers an immune response. Since helper T cells coordinate immune responses, these changes mean they’re better equipped to help other immune cells fight infections effectively.

Most other immune cells stayed the same, meaning kimchi targeted helper T cells rather than activating the entire immune system. Maintaining this balance is important because the immune system must be able to respond to infections effectively while avoiding excessive inflammation that can damage tissues.

Overall, the results suggest that kimchi helps the immune system respond to threats more effectively without causing too much inflammation. Both types of kimchi produced these effects – though starter-culture kimchi showed a slightly stronger effect. Those taking the placebo saw no immune changes.

These findings point to potential benefits for defence against viruses, responsiveness to vaccines and regulation of inflammation – although further research is needed.

Immune cell function

It’s worth mentioning that this study was small and focused on changes in immune cells, not actual health outcomes. So we don’t yet know if eating kimchi in this way would reduce infections or inflammation in daily life.

However, the study does provide a plausible molecular explanation for how fermented foods can influence immune function. This tells us more than we can learn from studies that only observe people’s habits. It links a common fermented food to measurable effects on immune cells – supporting the idea that fermented foods may be used strategically to enhance immune regulation and overall immune balance.

Kimchi isn’t the only fermented food that may have immune benefits. Other foods such as yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, miso and kombucha contain live microbes and metabolites that have a positive effect on the microbiome and may influence immune function.

Some studies have also shown that fermented dairy products can increase beneficial gut bacteria and modulate immune responses, including T cell and antibody activity.

The exact effects of fermented foods will depend on many variables, including the microbes present, the fermentation method and an individual’s unique gut microbiome.

Different fermented foods may also have different effects due to the microbes they contain. This is why including a variety of fermented foods may be more beneficial than relying on a single type.

There’s no established recommendation for how much fermented food to eat. In this study, participants consumed the equivalent of 30 grams of kimchi per day, an amount that is feasible for most people.

While research is still unfolding, including a variety of fermented foods in your diet is an easy and enjoyable way to explore the potential benefits for your gut and immune system.

Try new options to discover what you like best, keep a few favourites ready in the fridge, and find simple ways to add them to everyday meals. Over time, these small, regular habits could help support your gut and immune health.

Rachel Woods, Senior Lecturer in Physiology, University of Lincoln

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

In April 2005, The Simpsons featured an episode where Marge, embarrassed by her hometown’s reputation for being uneducated and uncultured, invites a world-famous architect to design a new concert hall for the city.

The episode cuts to the architect, Frank Gehry (playing himself), outside his house in Santa Monica, receiving Marge’s letter. He is frustrated by the request and crumples the letter, throwing it to the ground. Looking down, the creased and ragged paper inspires him, and the episode cuts to a model of his concert hall for Springfield, which copies the shape of the crumpled letter.

By building Gehry’s design, the people of Springfield hoped to send a signal to the world that a new era of culture had arrived. As it often did, this episode of The Simpsons references a real-life phenomenon, which Gehry was credited with triggering, the “Bilbao effect”.

In 1991, the city of Bilbao in northern Spain sought to enhance its economic and cultural standing by establishing a major arts centre. Gehry was commissioned to design the Bilbao Guggenheim, proposing a 57-metre-high building, a spiralling vortex of titanium and glass, along the banks of the Nervión River.

Using software developed for aerospace industries, Gehry designed a striking, photogenic building, sharply contrasting with the city’s traditional stone and masonry streetscapes.

Finished in 1997, the response to Gehry’s building was overwhelming. Bilbao was transformed into an international tourist destination, revitalising the city and boosting its cultural credentials and economic prospects. As a result, many cities tried to reproduce the so-called “Bilbao effect” by combining iconic architecture and the arts to encourage a cultural renaissance.

Gehry, who has died at 96, leaves a powerful legacy, visible in many major cities, in the media, in galleries and in popular culture.

An architect’s life

Gehry was born Frank Owen Goldberg in Toronto, Canada, in 1929 and emigrated to Los Angeles in the late 1940s, where he changed his surname to Gehry. He studied architecture and urban planning and established a successful commercial practice in 1962.

It wasn’t until the late 1970s, when he began experimenting with alterations and additions to his own house, that he began to develop his signature approach to architecture. An approach that was both visionary and confronting.

In 1977, Gehry purchased a colonial bungalow on a typical suburban street in Santa Monica. Soon after, he began peeling back its cladding and exposing its structural frame. He added a jumble of plywood panels, corrugated metal walls, and chain-link fencing, giving the impression of a house in a perpetual state of demolition or reconstruction.

Its fragmented, unfinished expression offended the neighbours but also led to his being exhibited in the landmark 1988 Museum of Modern Art’s Deconstructivist Architecture show.

At this event, Gehry’s house was featured alongside a range of subversive, anti-establishment works, catapulting him to international fame.

Unlike other architects featured in the exhibition – such as Coop Himmelblau, Rem Koolhaas and Daniel Libeskind – Gehry was not driven by a political or philosophical stance. Instead, he was interested in how people would react to the experience of architecture.

It was only after the Bilbao Guggenheim was completed that the world could see this vision.

Throughout the 2000s, Gehry completed a range of significant buildings, led by the Walt Disney Concert Hall (2003) in Los Angeles, which has a similar style to the Bilbao Guggenheim.

Gehry’s Museum of Pop Culture (2000) in Seattle is a composition of anodised purple, gold, silver and sky-blue forms, resembling the remnants of a smashed electric guitar.

The Marqués de Riscal Vineyard Hotel (2006) in Elciego, Spain, features steel ribbons in Burgundy-pink and Verdelho-gold. The Louis Vuitton Foundation (2014) in Paris has 12 large glass sails, swirling around an “iceberg” of concrete panels.

Gehry only completed one building in Australia, the Dr Chau Chak Wing Building (2014) in Sydney. Its design, an undulating form clad in custom-made bricks, was inspired by a crumpled brown paper bag. Marge Simpson would have approved.

Recognition and reflection

The highest global honour an architect can receive is the Pritzker Prize, often called the “Nobel prize for architecture”. Gehry was awarded this prize in 1989, with the jury praising his “controversial, but always arresting body of work” which was “iconoclastic, rambunctious and impermanent”.

While the Pritzker Prize is often regarded as a capstone for a career, most of Gehry’s major works were completed after the award.

Gehry revelled in experimentation, taking artistic inspiration from complex natural forms and constructing them using advanced technology. Over the last three decades, his firm continued to produce architecture that was both strikingly sculptural and playfully whimsical.

He ultimately regretted appearing on The Simpsons, feeling it devalued the complex process he followed. His architecture was not random; an artist’s eye guided it, and a sculptor’s hand created it. It was not just any crumpled form, but the perfect one for each site and client.

He sometimes joked about completing his home in Santa Monica, even humorously ending his acceptance speech for the Pritzker Prize by saying he might use his prize money to do this. Today, on the corner of 22nd Street and Washington Avenue, partly shielded by trees, Gehry’s house remains forever a work in progress. Its uncompromising yet joyful presence has endured for almost 50 years.

Michael J. Ostwald, Professor of Architectural Analytics, UNSW Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.