Informing Moral Decisions with Religious Images: An Examination of Associative Priming

Symbols represent information we have previously learned or experienced, but they can also serve to encourage thoughts and behaviors that are consistent with this knowledge/experience in order to maintain social cohesion (Guthrie, 1996). Pictures (e.g., American Red Cross image) representing moral rules (e.g., ‘save lives’) have been shown to influence moral decisions (Broeders, van den Box, Muller, & Ham, 2011), but there is no empirical evidence to demonstrate that religious pictures encourage the same outcome. Four studies examined whether religious pictures would influence decision making (lexical, moral), and furthermore whether personal belief in religion was a moderating factor. In Study 1, participants viewed religious and neutral (control) pictures, and then made a series of lexical decisions (Meyer & Schvaneveldt, 1971). In Study 2, participants viewed religious and neutral words (which represented the pictures viewed in Study 1), and then made lexical decisions. In Studies 3 and 4, participants made decisions about moral actions. Moral decisions were preceded by viewing pictures in Study 3, and by words in Study 4. Self-reported religiosity was assessed last in each experiment. Across the four studies, we found support for the influence of religious pictures on decision making. In Studies 1 and 2, lexical decisions were faster to religious words when primed with religious pictures. In Study 3, participants rated morally ambiguous actions as less appropriate when primed with religious pictures. This occurred to a greater degree for religious participants. In Study 4, there was a general priming effect of religious words, but this was not influenced by individual religious beliefs

Hot versus Cold Processing in Moral Judgment and the Role of Cognitive Capacity

In this study I first examined whether the cognitive processes (hot versus cold cognition) underlying judgments to traditional moral situations are universal to situations that are morally neutral, and whether individual differences in cognitive ability moderate these judgments. Second, I tested whether it was possible to modify the impact of hot versus cold processing systems on judgment deliberation by shifting the focus of attention during the decision-making process. I conclude that moral judgment is not simply the product of cognitive ability and is not sufficiently motivated by hot cognitive experiences alone. The role of cognitive abilities on moral valuation requires further examination

Search for cosmic gamma radiation with a vidicon spark chamber Final report

Cosmic gamma radiation searched with vidicon spark chamber flown in high-altitude balloo

Obesity and Cardiometabolic Risk Factors : from Childhood to Adulthood

Obesity has become a major epidemic in the 21st century. It increases the risk of dyslipidemia, hypertension, and type 2 diabetes, which are known cardiometabolic risk factors and components of the metabolic syndrome. Although overt cardiovascular (CV) diseases such as stroke or myocardial infarction are the domain of adulthood, it is evident that the CV continuum begins very early in life. Recognition of risk factors and early stages of CV damage, at a time when these processes are still reversible, and the development of prevention strategies are major pillars in reducing CV morbidity and mortality in the general population. In this review, we will discuss the role of well-known but also novel risk factors linking obesity and increased CV risk from prenatal age to adulthood, including the role of perinatal factors, diet, nutrigenomics, and nutri-epigenetics, hyperuricemia, dyslipidemia, hypertension, and cardiorespiratory fitness. The importance of 'tracking' of these risk factors on adult CV health is highlighted and the economic impact of childhood obesity as well as preventive strategies are discussed

Diversification of the Caenorhabditis heat shock response by Helitron transposable elements.

Heat Shock Factor 1 (HSF-1) is a key regulator of the heat shock response (HSR). Upon heat shock, HSF-1 binds well-conserved motifs, called Heat Shock Elements (HSEs), and drives expression of genes important for cellular protection during this stress. Remarkably, we found that substantial numbers of HSEs in multiple Caenorhabditis species reside within Helitrons, a type of DNA transposon. Consistent with Helitron-embedded HSEs being functional, upon heat shock they display increased HSF-1 and RNA polymerase II occupancy and up-regulation of nearby genes in C. elegans. Interestingly, we found that different genes appear to be incorporated into the HSR by species-specific Helitron insertions in C. elegans and C. briggsae and by strain-specific insertions among different wild isolates of C. elegans. Our studies uncover previously unidentified targets of HSF-1 and show that Helitron insertions are responsible for rewiring and diversifying the Caenorhabditis HSR

Hyperosmotic stress memory in Arabidopsis is mediated by distinct epigenetically labile sites in the genome and is restricted in the male germline by DNA glycosylase activity

Inducible epigenetic changes in eukaryotes are believed to enable rapid adaptation to environmental fluctuations. We have found distinct regions of the Arabidopsis genome that are susceptible to DNA (de)methylation in response to hyperosmotic stress. The stress-induced epigenetic changes are associated with conditionally heritable adaptive phenotypic stress responses. However, these stress responses are primarily transmitted to the next generation through the female lineage due to widespread DNA glycosylase activity in the male germline, and extensively reset in the absence of stress. Using the CNI1/ATL31 locus as an example, we demonstrate that epigenetically targeted sequences function as distantly-acting control elements of antisense long non-coding RNAs, which in turn regulate targeted gene expression in response to stress. Collectively, our findings reveal that plants use a highly dynamic maternal ‘short-term stress memory’ with which to respond to adverse external conditions. This transient memory relies on the DNA methylation machinery and associated transcriptional changes to extend the phenotypic plasticity accessible to the immediate offspring

Chromatin dynamics during interphase and cell division:similarities and differences between model and crop plants

Genetic information in the cell nucleus controls organismal development, responses to the environment and finally ensures own transmission to the next generations. To achieve so many different tasks, the genetic information is associated with structural and regulatory proteins, which orchestrate nuclear functions in time and space. Furthermore, plant life strategies require chromatin plasticity to allow a rapid adaptation to abiotic and biotic stresses. Here, we summarize current knowledge on the organisation of plant chromatin and dynamics of chromosomes during interphase and mitotic and meiotic cell divisions for model and crop plants differing as to the genome size, ploidy and amount of genomic resources available. The existing data indicate that chromatin changes accompany most (if not all) cellular processes and that there are both shared and unique themes in the chromatin structure and global chromosome dynamics among species. Ongoing efforts to understand the molecular mechanisms involved in chromatin organisation and remodeling have, together with the latest genome editing tools, potential to unlock crop genomes for innovative breeding strategies and improvements of various traits