Transfer of memory retrieval cues attenuates the context specificity of latent inhibition

Previous studies have demonstrated that the transfer of retrieval cues for original acquisition memories, old \u27reactivated‘ memories, and extinction memories attenuated the context shift effect. This study examined whether latent inhibition (CS preexposure) cues would also transfer, thus alleviating the context specificity. Rats preexposed to a particular context were immediately exposed to a different, novel context. When these rats were trained and tested in the shifted context following preexposure/exposure they showed the latent inhibition effect, i.e., retarded learning in the context that differed from preexposure. That the rats treated the shifted context as the preexposure context demonstrates that the preexposure retrieval cues transferred. These results are consistent with other findings that a novel context can serve as retrieval cues for an event learned in a different setting

Response to early literacy instruction in the United States, Australia, and Scandinavia A behavioral-genetic analysis

Abstract Genetic and environmental influences on early reading and spelling at the end of kindergarten and Grade 1 were compared across three twin samples tested in the United States, Australia, and Scandinavia. Proportions of variance due to genetic influences on kindergarten reading were estimated at .84 in Australia, .68 in the U.S., and .33 in Scandinavia. The effects of shared environment on kindergarten reading were estimated at .09 in Australia, .25 in the U.S., and .52 in Scandinavia. A similar pattern of genetic and environmental influences was obtained for kindergarten spelling. One year later when twins in all three samples had received formal literacy instruction for at least one full school year, heritability was similarly high across country, with estimated genetic influences varying between .79 and .83 for reading and between .62 and .79 for spelling. These findings indicate that the pattern of genetic and environmental influences on early reading and spelling development varies according to educational context, with genetic influence increasing as a function of increasing intensity of early instruction. Longitudinal analyses revealed genetic continuity for both reading and spelling between kindergarten and Grade 1 across country. However, a new genetic factor comes into play accounting for independent variance in reading at Grade 1 in the U.S. and Scandinavia, suggesting a change in genetic influences on reading. Implications for responseto-instruction are discussed. 4 Historically, and as late as 1800, more than 50% of the population in most western countries was illiterate. The opportunity to learn to read and write was a privilege, to a large extent determined by social-cultural conditions In this article, we continue to report on our International Longitudinal Twin Study (ILTS) of early language and literacy development The main purpose here was to compare genetic and environmental influences on early reading and spelling skills across three twin samples tested in the United States, Australia, and Scandinavia (i.e., Sweden and Norway) and across time of testing (i.e., kindergarten and Grade 1). Two questions are addressed: First, are there any differences in the pattern of genetic and environmental influences on early reading and spelling skills across country? Second, what are the changes in the pattern of genetic and environmental influences on reading and spelling from kindergarten to Grade 1? The general expectation is that the effects of environment on literacy skills should decrease and the genetic contribution increase as a function of intensity and consistency of instruction, across countries and time. This approach should also inform recent interest in response-to-intervention, or RTI, as a method to ascertain, define, and remediate 5 reading difficulties The ILTS has previously documented substantial effects of genes and relatively minor However, in a recent ILTS study of data collected near the end of kindergarten ), individual differences in reading and spelling skills were mainly 6 accounted for by genetic factors in a sample of Australian twins, with estimates of .91 and .84, respectively. In contrast, in a sample of U.S. twins from the state of Colorado, only approximately half of the variance in reading and spelling was accounted for by genetic influences, with the other half attributed to shared and non-shared environment. Although these country differences in genetic and environmental influences on individual differences in reading and spelling were not statistically significant with the available sample sizes, we hypothesized that the trends might be explained by country differences in educational practice. Compulsory school starts at around age five in both Australia and Colorado, but in New South Wales, Australian children enter a school system regulated by a state-wide curriculum mandating that at least 35% of a full school week (9 am to 3 pm, five days a week) should be devoted to language and literacy instruction. In contrast, in Colorado children attend kindergarten school for only 3-4 hours each day, and there is no state-mandated curriculum for teaching reading and spelling. One plausible explanation for the different pattern of genetic and environmental influences on reading and spelling in Australia and U.S. is that a state-wide curriculum emphasizing intense literacy instruction reduces the environmental range in the population, and thus, the amount of variance in reading and spelling skills that can be accounted for by environmental factors. Another explanation is that the greater intensity of instruction in NSW engages genetically-influenced learning processes earlier than in the US, resulting in a higher genetic contribution to overall variability. To further explore these hypotheses, the present study includes a sample of Scandinavian twins. In Scandinavia, compulsory school starts when the child is seven years old, that is, one to two years later compared to Australia and the U.S. Nevertheless, almost all children do attend kindergarten prior to compulsory attendance in Grade 1, but kindergarten curriculum in Sweden and Norway emphasizes social, emotional, and aesthetic development rather than early literacy acquisition. In this way, Scandinavia represents a population where environmental 7 variation outside of school might have a substantial impact on individual differences in kindergarten reading and spelling skills because there is no formal reading instruction in kindergarten. Instead, literacy socialization is mainly given informally at home. However, at seven years of age, in Grade 1, teaching reading and spelling is the target activity in school, and literacy instruction is guided by a master plan common to all schools in Sweden and Norway. This change from informal literacy teaching taking place at the children's home to a countrywide curriculum emphasizing formal reading and spelling instruction should reduce environmental range and increase the intensity of engagement. From kindergarten to Grade 1, we hypothesize, therefore, that the heritability of literacy skills increases and the importance of shared environment decreases in Scandinavia. To summarize, we hypothesize different contributions from genes and environment to kindergarten literacy skills across countries. We also hypothesize an increase in genetic effects on literacy from kindergarten to Grade 1, especially in Scandinavia where formal reading instruction is introduced one year later than in Australia and the U.S. These questions are addressed in the present study through univariate behavior-genetic analyses of data from identical and same-sex fraternal twins tested near the end of kindergarten and first grade. In addition to comparing the magnitudes of genetic and environmental influences between countries and grades in univariate analyses, with a multivariate approach we also address the question whether the same or different sources of genetic and environmental influences account for individual differences in literacy at kindergarten and Grade 1. Based on the differences in the curriculum for literacy instruction across countries summarized above, we hypothesize continuity in the pattern of genetic and environmental influences on reading and spelling from kindergarten to Grade 1 in Australia, but a possible change in genetic and environmental effects on literacy skills in Scandinavia, with the US representing an intermediate case. Method Participants The kindergarten sample comprised a total of 812 same-sex twin pairs recruited from the Colorado Twin Registry in the U.S., the National Heath and Medical Research Council's Australian Twin Registry, and from the Medical Birth Registries in Norway and Sweden (see Actual attrition because of families leaving the project is virtually zero. Only participants for whom the predominant language of their country (i.e., English, Swedish, or Norwegian) was the first language spoken at home were selected. There were no significant differences in parents' mean years of education across twin samples. Also, the means were around 14 years suggesting that level of education is representative for each country. Zygosity was determined by DNA analysis from cheek swab collection, or, in a minority of cases, by selected items from the questionnaire by Literacy skills Reading. Reading skills in kindergarten and Grade 1 were measured by both the word and nonword subtests from the Test of Word Reading Efficiency (TOWRE; Torgesen, Wagner, & Rashotte, 1999), with both Forms A and B administered and averaged to increase reliability (test-retest reliability for children aged 6-9 years, .97 for word and .90 for nonword standard scores). In each Form, children read a list of words and a list of nonwords as quickly as possible in 45 sec. A composite measure of reading skill was created for phenotypic analyses, justified by high correlations, .83 and .86 on average, between word and nonword reading at both kindergarten and at the end of Grade 1. For the behavior genetic analyses, we modelled the four subtests of word and nonword reading as latent traits. Spelling. At kindergarten, spelling was measured by a test developed by Byrne and Fielding- Procedure Children were assessed individually by trained examiners in their homes and/or schools at the end of kindergarten and Grade 1. To foster fidelity of assessment between testers and sites, we have adopted the practice of videotaping samples of test sessions and having each tester inspect the tapes of other testers. In this study, we only report on reading and spelling measures performed at each age. However, in single one-hour sessions at each of kindergarten and Grade 1, several other measures such as phonological awareness, RAN, and verbal abilities were included (for details, see Analysis One-way analyses of variance (ANOVA) and Tukey HSD post hoc tests were performed to test differences between country samples for reading and spelling at kindergarten and Grade 1. The magnitude of the mean differences was calculated using Cohen's d. Genetic and environmental influences on reading and spelling skills across country and within country 11 across time were analyzed using monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twin correlations, and models were fitted from raw data using maximum likelihood estimation in Mx Results Reading and spelling skills across country Means and standard deviations for reading and spelling at kindergarten and Grade 1 across country and effect size estimations for mean differences are presented in Behavior-genetic analyses Standardized raw data adjusted for age and gender effects within each twin sample were used as input for all behavior-genetic analyses. To estimate the relative influence on individual differences from additive genetic effects (a 2 ), shared-environment effects (c 2 ), and nonsharedenvironment effects (e 2 ), the data for reading and spelling skills were subjected to structural equation modelling by use of the Mx statistical modelling package (Neale, Boker, Xie, & Maes, 2002). In this section, we start by presenting correlations between MZ and DZ twins

South Georgia blue whales five decades after the end of whaling

Blue whales Balaenoptera musculus at South Georgia were heavily exploited during 20th century industrial whaling, to the point of local near-extirpation. Although legal whaling for blue whales ceased in the 1960s, and there were indications of blue whale recovery across the wider Southern Ocean area, blue whales were seldom seen in South Georgia waters in subsequent years. We collated 30 yr of data comprising opportunistic sightings, systematic visual and acoustic surveys and photo-identification to assess the current distribution of blue whales in the waters surrounding South Georgia. Over 34000 km of systematic survey data between 1998 and 2018 resulted in only a single blue whale sighting, although opportunistic sightings were reported over that time period. However, since 2018 there have been increases in both sightings of blue whales and detections of their vocalisations. A survey in 2020 comprising visual line transect surveys and directional frequency analysis and recording (DIFAR) sonobuoy deployments resulted in 58 blue whale sightings from 2430 km of visual effort, including the photo-identification of 23 individual blue whales. Blue whale vocalisations were detected on all 31 sonobuoys deployed (114 h). In total, 41 blue whales were photo-identified from South Georgia between 2011 and 2020, none of which matched the 517 whales in the current Antarctic catalogue. These recent data suggest that blue whales have started to return to South Georgia waters, but continued visual and acoustic surveys are required to monitor any future changes in their distribution and abundance

Efficacy of Manipulating Reproduction of Common Ravens to Conserve Sensitive Prey Species: Three Case Studies

Expansion of human enterprise across western North America has resulted in an increase in availability of anthropogenic resource subsidies for generalist species. This has led to increases in generalists’ population numbers across landscapes that were previously less suitable for their current demographic rates. Of particular concern are growing populations of common ravens (Corvus corax; ravens), because predation by ravens is linked to population declines of sensitive species. Ecosystem managers seek management options for mitigating the adverse effects of raven predation where unsustainable predator–prey conflicts exist. We present 3 case studies examining how manipulating reproductive success of ravens influences demographic rates of 2 sensitive prey species. Two case studies examine impacts of removing raven nests or oiling raven eggs on nest survival of greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus; sage-grouse) within Wyoming and the Great Basin of California and Nevada, USA, respectively. The third case study uses Mojave desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii; tortoise) decoys to examine effects of oiling raven eggs on depredation rates of juvenile tortoises in the Mojave Desert in California. Initial trial years from all 3 case studies were consistent in finding improved vital rates associated with the application of strategies for reducing reproductive success of ravens. Specifically, removal of raven nests resulted in increased nest survival of sage-grouse within treatment areas where predation by ravens was the primary cause of nest failure. In addition, nest survival of sage-grouse and survival of juvenile tortoise decoys was higher following a treatment of oiling the eggs of ravens in their nests at 2 sites within the Great Basin and 4 tortoise conservation areas in the Mojave Desert in California. Along with specialized technologies that can make techniques such as egg-oiling more feasible, these findings support these management practices as important tools for managing ravens, especially in areas where breeding ravens have negative impacts on sensitive prey species

Formaldehyde over North America and the North Atlantic during the summer 2004 INTEX campaign: Methods, observed distributions, and measurement‐model comparisons

A tunable diode laser absorption spectrometer (TDLAS) was operated on the NASA DC‐8 aircraft during the summer INTEX‐NA study to acquire ambient formaldehyde (CH2O) measurements over North America and the North Atlantic Ocean from ∼0.2 km to ∼12.5 km altitude spanning 17 science flights. Measurements of CH2O in the boundary layer and upper troposphere over the southeastern United States were anomalously low compared to studies in other years, and this was attributed to the record low temperatures over this region during the summer of 2004. Formaldehyde is primarily formed over the southeast from isoprene, and isoprene emissions are strongly temperature‐dependent. Despite this effect, the median upper tropospheric (UT) CH2O mixing ratio of 159 pptv from the TDLAS over continental North America is about a factor of 4 times higher than the median UT value of 40 pptv observed over remote regions during TRACE‐P. These observations together with the higher variability observed in this study all point to the fact that continental CH2O levels in the upper troposphere were significantly perturbed during the summer of 2004 relative to more typical background levels in the upper troposphere over more remote regions. The TDLAS measurements discussed in this paper are employed together with box model results in the companion paper by Fried et al. to further examine enhanced CH2O distributions in the upper troposphere due to convection. Measurements of CH2O on the DC‐8 were also acquired by a coil enzyme fluorometric system and compared with measurements from the TDLAS system

The Role of Convection in Redistributing Formaldehyde to the Upper Troposphere Over North America and the North Atlantic during the Summer 2004 INTEX Campaign

Measurements of CH2O from a tunable diode laser absorption spectrometer (TDLAS) were acquired onboard the NASA DC-8 during the summer 2004 INTEX-NA (Intercontinental Chemical Transport Experiment - North America) campaign to test our understanding of convection and production mechanisms in the upper troposphere (UT, 6-12-km) over continental North America and the North Atlantic Ocean. Point-by-point comparisons with box model calculations, when MHP (CH3OOH) measurements were available for model constraint, resulted in a median CH2O measurement/model ratio of 0.91 in the UT. Multiple tracers were used to arrive at a set of UT CH2O background and perturbed air mass periods, and 46% of the TDLAS measurements fell within the latter category. At least 66% to 73% of these elevated UT observations were caused by enhanced production from CH2O precursors rather than direct transport of CH2O from the boundary layer. This distinction is important, since the effects from the former can last for over a week or more compared to one day or less in the case of convective transport of CH2O itself. In general, production of CH2O from CH4 was found to be the dominant source term, even in perturbed air masses. This was followed by production from MHP, methanol, PAN type compounds, and ketones, in descending order of their contribution. In the presence of elevated NO from lightning and potentially from the stratosphere, there was a definite trend in the CH2O discrepancy, which for the highest NO mixing ratios produced a median CH2O measurement/model ratio of 3.9 in the 10-12-km range. Discrepancies in CH2O and HO2 in the UT with NO were highly correlated and this provided further information as to the possible mechanism(s) responsible. These discrepancies with NO are consistent with additional production sources of both gases involving CH3O2 + NO reactions, most likely caused by unmeasured hydrocarbons

Negative parental responses to coming out and family functioning in a sample of lesbian and gay young adults

Parental responses to youths' coming out (CO) are crucial to the subsequent adjustment of children and family. The present study investigated the negative parental reaction to the disclosure of same-sex attraction and the differences between maternal and paternal responses, as reported by their homosexual daughters and sons. Participants' perceptions of their parents' reactions (evaluated through the Perceived Parental Reactions Scale, PPRS), age at coming out, gender, parental political orientation, and religiosity involvement, the family functioning (assessed through the Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scales, FACES IV), were assessed in 164 Italian gay and lesbian young adults. Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated to assess the relation between family functioning and parental reaction to CO. The paired sample t-test was used to compare mothers and fathers' scores on the PPRS. Hierarchical multiple regression was conducted to analyze the relevance of each variable. No differences were found between mothers and fathers in their reaction to the disclosure. The analysis showed that a negative reaction to coming out was predicted by parents' right-wing political conservatism, strong religious beliefs, and higher scores in the scales Rigid and Enmeshed. Findings confirm that a negative parental reaction is the result of poor family resources to face a stressful situation and a strong belief in traditional values. These results have important implications in both clinical and social fields

Canvass: a crowd-sourced, natural-product screening library for exploring biological space

NCATS thanks Dingyin Tao for assistance with compound characterization. This research was supported by the Intramural Research Program of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health (NIH). R.B.A. acknowledges support from NSF (CHE-1665145) and NIH (GM126221). M.K.B. acknowledges support from NIH (5R01GM110131). N.Z.B. thanks support from NIGMS, NIH (R01GM114061). J.K.C. acknowledges support from NSF (CHE-1665331). J.C. acknowledges support from the Fogarty International Center, NIH (TW009872). P.A.C. acknowledges support from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), NIH (R01 CA158275), and the NIH/National Institute of Aging (P01 AG012411). N.K.G. acknowledges support from NSF (CHE-1464898). B.C.G. thanks the support of NSF (RUI: 213569), the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, and the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation. C.C.H. thanks the start-up funds from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography for support. J.N.J. acknowledges support from NIH (GM 063557, GM 084333). A.D.K. thanks the support from NCI, NIH (P01CA125066). D.G.I.K. acknowledges support from the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (1 R01 AT008088) and the Fogarty International Center, NIH (U01 TW00313), and gratefully acknowledges courtesies extended by the Government of Madagascar (Ministere des Eaux et Forets). O.K. thanks NIH (R01GM071779) for financial support. T.J.M. acknowledges support from NIH (GM116952). S.M. acknowledges support from NIH (DA045884-01, DA046487-01, AA026949-01), the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs through the Peer Reviewed Medical Research Program (W81XWH-17-1-0256), and NCI, NIH, through a Cancer Center Support Grant (P30 CA008748). K.N.M. thanks the California Department of Food and Agriculture Pierce's Disease and Glassy Winged Sharpshooter Board for support. B.T.M. thanks Michael Mullowney for his contribution in the isolation, elucidation, and submission of the compounds in this work. P.N. acknowledges support from NIH (R01 GM111476). L.E.O. acknowledges support from NIH (R01-HL25854, R01-GM30859, R0-1-NS-12389). L.E.B., J.K.S., and J.A.P. thank the NIH (R35 GM-118173, R24 GM-111625) for research support. F.R. thanks the American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities (ALSAC) for financial support. I.S. thanks the University of Oklahoma Startup funds for support. J.T.S. acknowledges support from ACS PRF (53767-ND1) and NSF (CHE-1414298), and thanks Drs. Kellan N. Lamb and Michael J. Di Maso for their synthetic contribution. B.S. acknowledges support from NIH (CA78747, CA106150, GM114353, GM115575). W.S. acknowledges support from NIGMS, NIH (R15GM116032, P30 GM103450), and thanks the University of Arkansas for startup funds and the Arkansas Biosciences Institute (ABI) for seed money. C.R.J.S. acknowledges support from NIH (R01GM121656). D.S.T. thanks the support of NIH (T32 CA062948-Gudas) and PhRMA Foundation to A.L.V., NIH (P41 GM076267) to D.S.T., and CCSG NIH (P30 CA008748) to C.B. Thompson. R.E.T. acknowledges support from NIGMS, NIH (GM129465). R.J.T. thanks the American Cancer Society (RSG-12-253-01-CDD) and NSF (CHE1361173) for support. D.A.V. thanks the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, the National Science Foundation (CHE-0353662, CHE-1005253, and CHE-1725142), the Beckman Foundation, the Sherman Fairchild Foundation, the John Stauffer Charitable Trust, and the Christian Scholars Foundation for support. J.W. acknowledges support from the American Cancer Society through the Research Scholar Grant (RSG-13-011-01-CDD). W.M.W.acknowledges support from NIGMS, NIH (GM119426), and NSF (CHE1755698). A.Z. acknowledges support from NSF (CHE-1463819). (Intramural Research Program of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health (NIH); CHE-1665145 - NSF; CHE-1665331 - NSF; CHE-1464898 - NSF; RUI: 213569 - NSF; CHE-1414298 - NSF; CHE1361173 - NSF; CHE1755698 - NSF; CHE-1463819 - NSF; GM126221 - NIH; 5R01GM110131 - NIH; GM 063557 - NIH; GM 084333 - NIH; R01GM071779 - NIH; GM116952 - NIH; DA045884-01 - NIH; DA046487-01 - NIH; AA026949-01 - NIH; R01 GM111476 - NIH; R01-HL25854 - NIH; R01-GM30859 - NIH; R0-1-NS-12389 - NIH; R35 GM-118173 - NIH; R24 GM-111625 - NIH; CA78747 - NIH; CA106150 - NIH; GM114353 - NIH; GM115575 - NIH; R01GM121656 - NIH; T32 CA062948-Gudas - NIH; P41 GM076267 - NIH; R01GM114061 - NIGMS, NIH; R15GM116032 - NIGMS, NIH; P30 GM103450 - NIGMS, NIH; GM129465 - NIGMS, NIH; GM119426 - NIGMS, NIH; TW009872 - Fogarty International Center, NIH; U01 TW00313 - Fogarty International Center, NIH; R01 CA158275 - National Cancer Institute (NCI), NIH; P01 AG012411 - NIH/National Institute of Aging; Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation; Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation; Scripps Institution of Oceanography; P01CA125066 - NCI, NIH; 1 R01 AT008088 - National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health; W81XWH-17-1-0256 - Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs through the Peer Reviewed Medical Research Program; P30 CA008748 - NCI, NIH, through a Cancer Center Support Grant; California Department of Food and Agriculture Pierce's Disease and Glassy Winged Sharpshooter Board; American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities (ALSAC); University of Oklahoma Startup funds; 53767-ND1 - ACS PRF; PhRMA Foundation; P30 CA008748 - CCSG NIH; RSG-12-253-01-CDD - American Cancer Society; RSG-13-011-01-CDD - American Cancer Society; CHE-0353662 - National Science Foundation; CHE-1005253 - National Science Foundation; CHE-1725142 - National Science Foundation; Beckman Foundation; Sherman Fairchild Foundation; John Stauffer Charitable Trust; Christian Scholars Foundation)Published versionSupporting documentatio