Is Malaysia’s banded langur, Presbytis femoralis femoralis, actually Presbytis neglectus neglectus? Taxonomic revision with new insights on the radiation history of the Presbytis species group in Southeast Asia

The disjunct distribution of Presbytis femoralis subspecies across Sumatra (P. f. percura), southern (P. f. femoralis) and northern (P. f. robinsoni) Peninsular Malaysia marks the unique vicariance events in the Sunda Shelf. However, the taxonomic positions and evolutionary history of P. f. femoralis are unresolved after decades of research. To elucidate this evolutionary history, we analyzed 501 base pairs of the mitochondrial HVSI gene from 25 individuals representing Malaysia’s banded langur, with the addition of 29 sequences of Asian Presbytis from Genbank. Our results revealed closer affinity of P. f. femoralis to P. m. mitrata and P. m. sumatrana while maintaining the monophyletic state of P. f. femoralis as compared to P. f. robinsoni. Two central theses were inferred from the results; (1) P. f. femoralis does not belong in the same species classification as P. f. robinsoni, and (2) P. f. femoralis is the basal lineage of the Presbytis in Peninsular Malaysia. Proving the first hypothesis through genetic analysis, we reassigned P. f. femoralis of Malaysia to Presbytis neglectus (Schlegel’s banded langur) (Schlegel in Revue Methodique, Museum d’Histoire Naturelle des Pays-Bas 7:1, 1876) following the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (article 23.3). The ancestors of P. neglectus are hypothesized to have reached southern Peninsular Malaysia during the Pleistocene and survived in refugium along the western coast. Consequently, they radiated upward, forming P. f. robinsoni and P. siamensis resulting in the highly allopatric distribution in Peninsular Malaysia. This study has successfully resolved the taxonomic position of P. neglectus in Peninsular Malaysia while providing an alternative biogeographic theory for the Asian Presbytis

Targeting of MCL-1 kills MYC-driven mouse and human lymphomas even when they bear mutations in p53

The transcriptional regulator c-MYC is abnormally overexpressed in many human cancers. Evasion from apoptosis is critical for cancer development, particularly c-MYC-driven cancers. We explored which anti-apoptotic BCL-2 family member (expressed under endogenous regulation) is essential to sustain c-MYC-driven lymphoma growth to reveal which should be targeted for cancer therapy. Remarkably, inducible Cre-mediated deletion of even a single Mcl-1 allele substantially impaired the growth of c-MYC-driven mouse lymphomas. Mutations in p53 could diminish but not obviate the dependency of c-MYC-driven mouse lymphomas on MCL-1. Importantly, targeting of MCL-1 killed c-MYC-driven human Burkitt lymphoma cells, even those bearing mutations in p53. Given that loss of one allele of Mcl-1 is well tolerated in healthy tissues, our results suggest that therapeutic targeting of MCL-1 would be an attractive therapeutic strategy for MYC-driven cancers

The evolution of the upright posture and gait—a review and a new synthesis

During the last century, approximately 30 hypotheses have been constructed to explain the evolution of the human upright posture and locomotion. The most important and recent ones are discussed here. Meanwhile, it has been established that all main hypotheses published until the last decade of the past century are outdated, at least with respect to some of their main ideas: Firstly, they were focused on only one cause for the evolution of bipedality, whereas the evolutionary process was much more complex. Secondly, they were all placed into a savannah scenario. During the 1990s, the fossil record allowed the reconstruction of emerging bipedalism more precisely in a forested habitat (e.g., as reported by Clarke and Tobias (Science 269:521–524, 1995) and WoldeGabriel et al. (Nature 412:175–178, 2001)). Moreover, the fossil remains revealed increasing evidence that this part of human evolution took place in a more humid environment than previously assumed. The Amphibian Generalist Theory, presented first in the year 2000, suggests that bipedalism began in a wooded habitat. The forests were not far from a shore, where our early ancestor, along with its arboreal habits, walked and waded in shallow water finding rich food with little investment. In contrast to all other theories, wading behaviour not only triggers an upright posture, but also forces the individual to maintain this position and to walk bipedally. So far, this is the only scenario suitable to overcome the considerable anatomical and functional threshold from quadrupedalism to bipedalism. This is consistent with paleoanthropological findings and with functional anatomy as well as with energetic calculations, and not least, with evolutionary psychology. The new synthesis presented here is able to harmonise many of the hitherto competing theories

SNAPSHOT USA 2019 : a coordinated national camera trap survey of the United States

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.With the accelerating pace of global change, it is imperative that we obtain rapid inventories of the status and distribution of wildlife for ecological inferences and conservation planning. To address this challenge, we launched the SNAPSHOT USA project, a collaborative survey of terrestrial wildlife populations using camera traps across the United States. For our first annual survey, we compiled data across all 50 states during a 14-week period (17 August - 24 November of 2019). We sampled wildlife at 1509 camera trap sites from 110 camera trap arrays covering 12 different ecoregions across four development zones. This effort resulted in 166,036 unique detections of 83 species of mammals and 17 species of birds. All images were processed through the Smithsonian's eMammal camera trap data repository and included an expert review phase to ensure taxonomic accuracy of data, resulting in each picture being reviewed at least twice. The results represent a timely and standardized camera trap survey of the USA. All of the 2019 survey data are made available herein. We are currently repeating surveys in fall 2020, opening up the opportunity to other institutions and cooperators to expand coverage of all the urban-wild gradients and ecophysiographic regions of the country. Future data will be available as the database is updated at eMammal.si.edu/snapshot-usa, as well as future data paper submissions. These data will be useful for local and macroecological research including the examination of community assembly, effects of environmental and anthropogenic landscape variables, effects of fragmentation and extinction debt dynamics, as well as species-specific population dynamics and conservation action plans. There are no copyright restrictions; please cite this paper when using the data for publication.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Genetic correlation between amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and schizophrenia

A. Palotie on työryhmän Schizophrenia Working Grp Psychiat jäsen.We have previously shown higher-than-expected rates of schizophrenia in relatives of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), suggesting an aetiological relationship between the diseases. Here, we investigate the genetic relationship between ALS and schizophrenia using genome-wide association study data from over 100,000 unique individuals. Using linkage disequilibrium score regression, we estimate the genetic correlation between ALS and schizophrenia to be 14.3% (7.05-21.6; P = 1 x 10(-4)) with schizophrenia polygenic risk scores explaining up to 0.12% of the variance in ALS (P = 8.4 x 10(-7)). A modest increase in comorbidity of ALS and schizophrenia is expected given these findings (odds ratio 1.08-1.26) but this would require very large studies to observe epidemiologically. We identify five potential novel ALS-associated loci using conditional false discovery rate analysis. It is likely that shared neurobiological mechanisms between these two disorders will engender novel hypotheses in future preclinical and clinical studies.Peer reviewe

Optimasi Portofolio Resiko Menggunakan Model Markowitz MVO Dikaitkan dengan Keterbatasan Manusia dalam Memprediksi Masa Depan dalam Perspektif Al-Qur`an

Risk portfolio on modern finance has become increasingly technical, requiring the use of sophisticated mathematical tools in both research and practice. Since companies cannot insure themselves completely against risk, as human incompetence in predicting the future precisely that written in Al-Quran surah Luqman verse 34, they have to manage it to yield an optimal portfolio. The objective here is to minimize the variance among all portfolios, or alternatively, to maximize expected return among all portfolios that has at least a certain expected return. Furthermore, this study focuses on optimizing risk portfolio so called Markowitz MVO (Mean-Variance Optimization). Some theoretical frameworks for analysis are arithmetic mean, geometric mean, variance, covariance, linear programming, and quadratic programming. Moreover, finding a minimum variance portfolio produces a convex quadratic programming, that is minimizing the objective function ðð¥with constraintsð ð 𥠥 ðandð´ð¥ = ð. The outcome of this research is the solution of optimal risk portofolio in some investments that could be finished smoothly using MATLAB R2007b software together with its graphic analysis

Search for supersymmetry in events with one lepton and multiple jets in proton-proton collisions at root s=13 TeV

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Influence of previous history on physical aging in thin glassy polymer films as gas separation membranes

a b s t r a c t The physical aging behavior of thin glassy polysulfone (PSF) films (w125 nm) with different previous histories was tracked using gas permeability measurements. The initial states of these materials were modulated by thermal annealing at fixed temperatures below the glass transition or by exposure to high pressure (800 psig (56.2 bara)) CO 2 for various times. Regardless of the previous history, the nature of the aging response in these samples was consistent with the aging behavior of an untreated film that was freshly quenched from above T g , i.e., permeability decreased and pure gas selectivity increased with aging time. However, the extent of aging-induced changes in transport properties of these materials depended strongly on previous history. The aging behavior was described using Struik's aging model by allowing the initial conditions to depend on each sample's previous history