The Peter Pan paradigm

Genetic and environmental agents that disrupt organogenesis are numerous and well described. Less well established, however, is the role of delay in the developmental processes that yield functionally immature tissues at birth. Evidence is mounting that organs do not continue to develop postnatally in the context of these organogenesis insults, condemning the patient to utilize under-developed tissues for adult processes. These poorly differentiated organs may appear histologically normal at birth but with age may deteriorate revealing progressive or adult-onset pathology. The genetic and molecular underpinning of the proposed paradigm reveals the need for a comprehensive systems biology approach to evaluate the role of maternal-fetal environment on organogenesis

Infectious Fear: The Rhetoric of Pestilence in Middle English Didactic Texts on Death

This article examines literary references to bubonic plague in a sample of late fourteenth- and fifteenth-century English texts that are didactic in tone and address the theme of death, including Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Pardoner’s Tale”, John Lydgate’s “Danse Macabre” and the anonymous The Castle of Perseverance and “A Disputation between the Body and Worms”. Although there have been broad surveys of bubonic plague in Middle English literature, as well as studies of isolated texts, this article is the first to examine the role of pestilence in a group of texts linked by theme and authorial intention. It contributes to current understanding of the disease in late medieval literature and culture, showing how authors utilised the idea of pestilence as a frightening cause of sudden death and as a form of rhetoric serving to encourage readers to reflect on mortality, the spiritual health of the soul and the prospect of salvation. Whereas previous research has shown that doctors, priests and writers interpreted the pestilence as a divine punishment for sin, this study demonstrates how that belief could be exploited for rhetorical purposes. The rhetoric of pestilence emerges as a powerful contemplative tool urging readers to practise self-examination, penitence and a more active, strategic approach to death

Search for dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks is presented. Final states containing third-generation quarks and miss- ing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at √s = 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess of events above the estimated backgrounds is observed. The results are in- terpreted in the framework of simplified models of spin-0 dark-matter mediators. For colour- neutral spin-0 mediators produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a pair of dark-matter particles, mediator masses below 50 GeV are excluded assuming a dark-matter candidate mass of 1 GeV and unitary couplings. For scalar and pseudoscalar mediators produced in association with bottom quarks, the search sets limits on the production cross- section of 300 times the predicted rate for mediators with masses between 10 and 50 GeV and assuming a dark-matter mass of 1 GeV and unitary coupling. Constraints on colour- charged scalar simplified models are also presented. Assuming a dark-matter particle mass of 35 GeV, mediator particles with mass below 1.1 TeV are excluded for couplings yielding a dark-matter relic density consistent with measurements