ZRT1 harbors an excess of nonsynonymous polymorphism and shows evidence of balancing selection in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Estimates of the fraction of nucleotide substitutions driven by positive selection vary widely across different species. Accounting for different estimates of positive selection has been difficult, in part because selection on polymorphism within a species is known to obscure a signal of positive selection between species. While methods have been developed to control for the confounding effects of negative selection against deleterious polymorphism, the impact of balancing selection on estimates of positive selection has not been assessed. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, there is no signal of positive selection within protein coding sequences as the ratio of nonsynonymous to synonymous polymorphism is higher than that of divergence. To investigate the impact of balancing selection on estimates of positive selection we examined five genes with high rates of nonsynonymous polymorphism in S. cerevisiae relative to divergence from S. paradoxus. One of the genes, a high affinity zinc transporter ZRT1, shows an elevated rate of synonymous polymorphism indicative of balancing selection. The high rate of synonymous polymorphism coincides with nonsynonymous divergence between three haplotype groups, which we find to be functionally indistinguishable. We conclude that balancing selection is not likely to be a common cause of genes harboring a large excess of nonsynonymous polymorphism in yeast

Pulsation Period Change & Classical Cepheids: Probing the Details of Stellar Evolution

Measurements of secular period change probe real-time stellar evolution of classical Cepheids making these measurements powerful constraints for stellar evolution models, especially when coupled with interferometric measurements. In this work, we present stellar evolution models and measured rates of period change for two Galactic Cepheids: Polaris and l Carinae, both important Cepheids for anchoring the Cepheid Leavitt law (period-luminosity relation). The combination of previously-measured parallaxes, interferometric angular diameters and rates of period change allows for predictions of Cepheid mass loss and stellar mass. Using the stellar evolution models, We find that l Car has a mass of about 9 $M_\odot$ consistent with stellar pulsation models, but is not undergoing enhanced stellar mass loss. Conversely, the rate of period change for Polaris requires including enhanced mass-loss rates. We discuss what these different results imply for Cepheid evolution and the mass-loss mechanism on the Cepheid instability strip.Comment: 2 pages, 1 figure, Poster presented at IAU307: New windows on massive stars: asteroseismology, interferometry, and spectropolarimetry, Editors: G. Meynet, C. Georgy, J.H. Groh & Ph. Ste

Promoting the General Welfare: Legal Reform to Lift Women and Children in the United States Out of Poverty

American women and children have been poor in exponentially greater numbers than men for decades. The problem has historic, institutional roots which provide a backdrop for this article’s introduction. English and early U.S. legal systems mandated a lesser economic status for women. Despite numerous legal changes aimed at combating the financial disadvantage of American women and children, the problem is worsening. American female workers, many in low-paying job sectors, earn roughly twenty percent less than their male counterparts. Nearly forty percent of single mothers and their children subsist below the poverty level. The recession exacerbated this problem, mostly because unemployment rates skyrocketed and then stagnated for years. Sadly, though, many women with jobs still find themselves living in poverty in modern America. Social trends loom large in the constellation of factors impacting poverty as well, and this article examines the twin phenomena of women and children 1) ending up poorer after divorce than men, and 2) living in poverty as single-headed-households much more often than men. I also stress the deleterious effects of domestic violence and its link to the perpetuation of women and children in poverty. I argue our legal system is equipped to build the scaffolding to facilitate our collective climb up and out. I advocate changes to government policies, and family law reform. Recent changes to federal benefits programs have exacerbated the problem of women and children living in poverty. Welfare reform and “domestic violence” provide a natural segue between the article’s two main sections. Modern family law developments such as no-fault divorce and the attendant decline of alimony are also analyzed. I propose specific federal legislative and policy reforms. Public perception is woefully misinformed, both on federal spending for benefits, and the extent of female/child poverty. Certain relatively inexpensive spending reforms could significantly reduce poverty. Some programs need increased funding or a restoration to pre-recession funding; some (i.e., minimum wage and welfare reform) are policy questions. Public awareness must be shifted, by politicians and advocates. My proposed reform is a set of nationalized alimony standards, ending the unpredictable nature of alimony among the states. State legislatures can be lobbied to implement these changes, but the federal government can and should step in to set policy and promote uniformity as it has for child support and for custody jurisdictional matters. With feminine poverty at historic proportions despite a progressive administration ensconced in the White House, legal activists must recognize this moment as ripe for reform and take action

Mandatory Reporting of Campus Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence: Moving to a Victim-Centric Protocol that Comports with Federal Law

This Article will examine mandatory reporting of campus domestic violence and sexual assault\u27 by faculty members when a student discloses this kind of incident to them. This Article describes the legal and social landscape of mandatory reporting and the attendant challenges, along with the policies and practices that colleges should adopt for faculty reporting to comply with federal law while still remaining sensitive to victim needs

Mandatory Reporting of Campus Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence: Moving to a Victim-Centric Protocol that Comports with Federal Law

This Article will examine mandatory reporting of campus domestic violence and sexual assault\u27 by faculty members when a student discloses this kind of incident to them. This Article describes the legal and social landscape of mandatory reporting and the attendant challenges, along with the policies and practices that colleges should adopt for faculty reporting to comply with federal law while still remaining sensitive to victim needs

Sexual Violence, Intangible Harm, and the Promise of Transformative Remedies

This Article describes alternative remedies that survivors of sexual violence can access inside and outside the legal system. It describes the leading restorative justice approaches and recommends one of the newest and most innovative of those—“transformative justice”—to heal the intangible harms of sexual violence. The Article also discusses the intersectional effects of sexual violence on women of color and their communities. It explains the importance of transformative justice’s intersectional approach to redress sexual violence. Transformative justice offers community-based, victim-centric methods that cultivate deep, lasting healing for sexual violence survivors and their communities, with genuine accountability for those who have caused harm. Although transformative justice has developed outside the legal system, its principles and methods are targeted toward the unique, often intangible harms experienced by sexual violence survivors. Therefore, transformative justice remedies should be available alongside and inside the legal system so survivors, their impacted communities, and those who cause harm can benefit from them

Comparing Supreme Court Jurisprudence in \u3ci\u3eObergefell v. Hodges\u3c/i\u3e and \u3ci\u3eTown of Castle Rock v. Gonzales\u3c/i\u3e: A Watershed Moment for Due Process Liberty

“The nature of injustice is that we may not always see it in our own times. The generations that wrote and ratified the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment did not presume to know the extent of freedom in all of its dimensions, and so they entrusted to future generations a charter protecting the right of all persons to enjoy liberty as we learn its meaning. When new insight reveals discord between the Constitution’s central protections and a received legal stricture, a claim to liberty must be addressed.” -- Obergefell v. Hodges, 135 S. Ct. 2584, 2598 (2015)(emphasis added) The Supreme Court described a troubling “discord between the Constitution’s central protections and a received legal stricture” in its 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges. Its decision in Obergefell resolved that discord in the context of the right to same-sex marriage. Unfortunately, that same discord remains in the context of marriages and other intimate relationships fraught with domestic violence because police protection for victims in these relationships is still not recognized as a due process interest. The Supreme Court faced this issue in its 2005 decision Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales, but it declined to recognize due process property rights for domestic violence victims based on police inaction. The right to police protection, as Justice Kennedy explains in Obergefell, is a right inextricably linked with the other fundamental rights protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Freedom from domestic violence is a fundamental human right, and the Supreme Court should recognize it as an aspect of due process liberty, just as it does the right to marry. The due process analysis in Obergefell enables the Supreme Court to overturn its decision in Castle Rock