The nature of wisdom:People's connection to nature reflects a deep understanding of life

This paper shows that wise young adults formulate phenomenological intuitions about their relationship to nature that contain many references to advanced modern conceptions of life and ‘core cognition’. Enactive cognition – summarized as “being by doing”, focuses on a living agent’s ability to remain alive through the selection of proper ‘behaviors’ from the set of coping and co-creating behaviors. Co-creating agents satisfy their immediate needs while improving the quality of the environment on which their need satisfaction depends. They contribute to a thriving environment in which long-term need satisfaction is greatly facilitated. We refer to this skill as ‘agent adequacy’ that we associate with wisdom. Inadequate agents continually cope with need satisfaction. They might end up in a ‘coping trap’ where their coping strategies gradually degrade the habitat on which their long-term viability depends. In doing so, they lock themselves in an endless cycle of marginal need satisfaction. We propose concise and precise formulations of three fundamental concepts of the agent-environment relation: adequacy (the ability to satisfy needs in the short and long term), connectedness (referring to a personal bond with other agents or nature as a whole that is experienced as mutual), and beauty (that derives from the environment’s ability to produce fragile perfection that is a measure of environmental quality). Analysis of our interviews showed that our (rather wise) group of respondents addressed all three fundamental concepts. We conclude that our theoretically derived agent-environment framework is exemplified by the human-nature relation

The nature of wisdom:People's connection to nature reflects a deep understanding of life

This paper shows that wise young adults formulate phenomenological intuitions about their relationship to nature that contain many references to advanced modern conceptions of life and ‘core cognition’. Enactive cognition – summarized as “being by doing”, focuses on a living agent’s ability to remain alive through the selection of proper ‘behaviors’ from the set of coping and co-creating behaviors. Co-creating agents satisfy their immediate needs while improving the quality of the environment on which their need satisfaction depends. They contribute to a thriving environment in which long-term need satisfaction is greatly facilitated. We refer to this skill as ‘agent adequacy’ that we associate with wisdom. Inadequate agents continually cope with need satisfaction. They might end up in a ‘coping trap’ where their coping strategies gradually degrade the habitat on which their long-term viability depends. In doing so, they lock themselves in an endless cycle of marginal need satisfaction. We propose concise and precise formulations of three fundamental concepts of the agent-environment relation: adequacy (the ability to satisfy needs in the short and long term), connectedness (referring to a personal bond with other agents or nature as a whole that is experienced as mutual), and beauty (that derives from the environment’s ability to produce fragile perfection that is a measure of environmental quality). Analysis of our interviews showed that our (rather wise) group of respondents addressed all three fundamental concepts. We conclude that our theoretically derived agent-environment framework is exemplified by the human-nature relation.</p

Sn-Beta zeolites with borate salts catalyse the epimerization of carbohydrates via an intramolecular carbon shift

Carbohydrate epimerization is an essential technology for the widespread production of rare sugars. In contrast to other enzymes, most epimerases are only active on sugars substituted with phosphate or nucleotide groups, thus drastically restricting their use. Here we show that Sn-Beta zeolite in the presence of sodium tetraborate catalyses the selective epimerization of aldoses in aqueous media. Specifically, a 5 wt% aldose (for example, glucose, xylose or arabinose) solution with a 4:1 aldose:sodium tetraborate molar ratio reacted with catalytic amounts of Sn-Beta yields near-equilibrium epimerization product distributions. The reaction proceeds by way of a 1,2 carbon shift wherein the bond between C-2 and C-3 is cleaved and a new bond between C-1 and C-3 is formed, with C-1 moving to the C-2 position with an inverted configuration. This work provides a general method of performing carbohydrate epimerizations that surmounts the main disadvantages of current enzymatic and inorganic processes.National Science Foundation (U.S.). Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers (Program) (Award DMR-0819762)DuPont MIT Alliance (Graduate Research Fellowship)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant EB-001960)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant EB-002026)National Science Foundation (U.S.). Graduate Research Fellowship Program (Grant 1122374

The impact of viral mutations on recognition by SARS-CoV-2 specific T cells

We identify amino acid variants within dominant SARS-CoV-2 T cell epitopes by interrogating global sequence data. Several variants within nucleocapsid and ORF3a epitopes have arisen independently in multiple lineages and result in loss of recognition by epitope-specific T cells assessed by IFN-γ and cytotoxic killing assays. Complete loss of T cell responsiveness was seen due to Q213K in the A∗01:01-restricted CD8+ ORF3a epitope FTSDYYQLY207-215; due to P13L, P13S, and P13T in the B∗27:05-restricted CD8+ nucleocapsid epitope QRNAPRITF9-17; and due to T362I and P365S in the A∗03:01/A∗11:01-restricted CD8+ nucleocapsid epitope KTFPPTEPK361-369. CD8+ T cell lines unable to recognize variant epitopes have diverse T cell receptor repertoires. These data demonstrate the potential for T cell evasion and highlight the need for ongoing surveillance for variants capable of escaping T cell as well as humoral immunity

Local- versus broad-scale environmental drivers of continental &#946;-diversity patterns in subterranean spider communities across Europe

Macroecologists seek to identify drivers of community turnover (β-diversity) through broad spatial scales. However, the influence of local habitat features in driving broad-scale β-diversity patterns remains largely untested, owing to the objective challenges of associating local-scale variables to continental-framed datasets. We examined the relative contribution of local- versus broad-scale drivers of continental β-diversity patterns, using a uniquely suited dataset of cave-dwelling spider communities across Europe (35–70° latitude). Generalized dissimilarity modelling showed that geographical distance, mean annual temperature and size of the karst area in which caves occurred drove most of β-diversity, with differential contributions of each factor according to the level of subterranean specialization. Highly specialized communities were mostly influenced by geographical distance, while less specialized communities were mostly driven by mean annual temperature. Conversely, local-scale habitat features turned out to be meaningless predictors of community change, which emphasizes the idea of caves as the human accessible fraction of the extended network of fissures that more properly represents the elective habitat of the subterranean fauna. To the extent that the effect of local features turned to be inconspicuous, caves emerge as experimental model systems in which to study broad biological patterns without the confounding effect of local habitat features

Sodium ion interactions with aqueous glucose: Insights from quantum mechanics, molecular dynamics, and experiment

In the last several decades, significant efforts have been conducted to understand the fundamental reactivity of glucose derived from plant biomass in various chemical environments for conversion to renewable fuels and chemicals. For reactions of glucose in water, it is known that inorganic salts naturally present in biomass alter the product distribution in various deconstruction processes. However, the molecular-level interactions of alkali metal ions and glucose are unknown. These interactions are of physiological interest as well, for example, as they relate to cation-glucose cotransport. Here, we employ quantum mechanics (QM) to understand the interaction of a prevalent alkali metal, sodium, with glucose from a structural and thermodynamic perspective. The effect on B-glucose is subtle: a sodium ion perturbs bond lengths and atomic partial charges less than rotating a hydroxymethyl group. In contrast, the presence of a sodium ion significantly perturbs the partial charges of α-glucose anomeric and ring oxygens. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations provide dynamic sampling in explicit water, and both the QM and the MD results show that sodium ions associate at many positions with respect to glucose with reasonably equivalent propensity. This promiscuous binding nature of Na + suggests that computational studies of glucose reactions in the presence of inorganic salts need to ensure thorough sampling of the cation positions, in addition to sampling glucose rotamers. The effect of NaCl on the relative populations of the anomers is experimentally quantified with light polarimetry. These results support the computational findings that Na + interacts similarly with a- and B-glucose